I received this perk as a level 6 Local Guide as well as three months of Google Play Music. I was a little confused when I was given the NYT membership. Google knows me... More than most do lol. I have zero interest in NYT. Stoked on the 3 months of Play Music though.
Three months of a biased newspaper with a huge history of being democratic anti-Catholic is hardly a benefit. And a limit of three months is more like a come-on like you get from the cable company or Verizon or AT&T. Or bonus points for a new credit card. It is not a benefit. It is a advertisement tricking you into a purchase.
That depends on which newspaper you consider "biased". Bonus points for a new credit card compel you to keep the credit card account open for you to use them. A come-on from AT&T or Verizon also requires you to become a paid subscriber by getting into a multi-year agreement. There is no such requirement here. You have three free months and you are free to cancel after that. If your memory is so bad that you do not remember to cancel or you don't even know how to set a reminder.... well, that is expected of a conservative.
Agree the perks suck. Google, you need to appreciate how much goodwill and time goes into reaching level 7. You should be partnering with more local businesses who want to get local guides through their doors and offer them discounts. Think marketplace for local guide perks.
If Google really wants to incentivise this community, why not offer things like discounts on Google Play media rentals, or discounted Google Home products. As someone that also put in a lot of time, mostly because I like helping people who travel. The Level system is pretty much garbage as far as I'm concerned.
Better perks will come along, but remember you're doing this to help others around the world too, so you're making the world a better place for all by contributing...
I agree the perk system is completely flawed from the beginning.
In my case, I'm currently level 7 and the only thing that I got were the 3 months of Google Play Music and the 75% off a movie rental on Google Play, which I didn't use anyway because I already have Spotify and HBO, and about this New York Times perk for level 7 you mention... I didn't even know about it!
Of course, we are not supposed to do this just for the perks, and in my case I started contributing after I found this was a better application to organize my favorite places than FourSquare, where I was getting API rate limit errors every time I tried to organize my favorites lists. However, I agree with what others have rightly pointed out: If Google is advertising the perks, they should try to improve that part of the product as well. But anyway, to be honest, I don't really care that much about those perks, but there are some other things that bother me. For example, how come can photos posted to Google Maps take up space from my personal Photos account? Wouldn't it make sense to have a perk that gives you more space as long as you keep a minimum number of good quality photos on Google Maps? Is Google expecting me to pay for more space once I reach the limit, even considering I mostly use that for Google Maps?
What about the points system? Why a detailed review gets the same points than a simple "Was ok" or "Liked it". Why Local Guides, even with high levels, have to come here to report an account and get no credit for that? Why reporting pictures or reviews, which can be done from the application, is also not rewarded? Why good pictures get the same points than bad ones?
There are some other perks that they could easily implement that would make a lot of people happy probably. Who would not like to have a limited edition Google Local Guide sticker to put on his or her laptop or a mug that reminds you every morning how awesome you are and how many people you are helping with your contributions? These are really silly things but hey, I have Angular, React and Cylon stickers on my laptop I got from multiple meetups and I have a Cake (http://getcake.com) mug just in front of me, so it looks like I'm using those more than the subscription they gave the last time...
Or maybe some other things more related to Local Guides, like getting discounts/vouchers/activity packs/event invitations or anything that has something to do with what we usually do in order to have something to contribute with.
Also, if they were really going to take care of creating nice perks regularly, they could implement a system where people could choose whether they want certain perks or not so that they are not wasted.
The perks need to improve and be permanent from the start though they should start at Level 6 as the lower levels are to easy to get.
The time it takes to edit 360 photo spheres ( remove and blur the bottom ) is time I could be using to do other things though I do it anyway as I enjoy photography though come on Google we are providing you with a service, at least you could give us better and permanent perks.
I'am actually hoping they will make a perm option for the Google Drive etc of 10-20GB.
2022
