OnX Email 6/6/21 - didn't say MP will remain 'free'

Reading the email onX sent out today, this line caught me:

"Further, we want to make sure you are aware that the Adventure Projects websites and apps remain as they always have, available for your use."

I am not sure exactly what it means, but I would have felt less worried if it said "...have, free and available for your use."

Mt first time reading it, this struck me as an obvious omission, which worries me a little. Even though I think onX said they planned to keep the site free in their post when they took it over. Did anyone else have that thought too reading their email? If onX personnel read this, can you again confirm that this site and it's content will remain free for users, for my/our peace of mind if nothing else?

The entire email in general to me seemed in general like an odd way to advertise a seemingly small snow-trail GPS product (especially now that it's late spring) to their MP(MTB/Hiking/train run/powder) project audience...

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner. You just found our how onX is already monetizing the user submitted data from Powder Project. The new app combines the data from powder project with additional information.  It's going to be pretty fun in the backcountry this season watching people look down at their phones while moving up the skin track.  

It doesn't matter what they say - their words aren't some kind of binding law. When services like this are purchased the purchaser always says nothing will change - then, eventually, things change to increase the revenue brought in. They paid for the site and are going to recoup their investment somehow, eventually. They think it could generate more money than it was generating previously, or they wouldn't have purchased it. Could be simply more aggressive selling of data behind the scenes, ads, paywall, or all of the above.

I will be so disturbed if they take away my free entertainment. Am I not entitled to free climbing entertainment? I could be so disturbed that I might consider paying for access after that. 

But most likely I'll just let it die like my climbing magazine subscriptions.

If you enjoy free things and data never going behind a pay wall consider contributing to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Climbing.

Philip Molloywrote:

If you enjoy free things and data never going behind a pay wall consider contributing to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Climbing.

That's pretty cool! I wonder how hard it would be to create an open street climbing map by scraping MP, since the MP API is no longer available :-(    

I'm now getting spammed by OnX for their other products, so that's fun. I don't remember agreeing to that, but that's business, I guess! 

Daniel Katwrote:

scraping MP

Did that: kaggle.com/pdegner/mountain…

P Degnerwrote:

Did that: kaggle.com/pdegner/mountain…

I enjoy climbing rotues

Philip Molloywrote:

If you enjoy free things and data never going behind a pay wall consider contributing to https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Climbing.

This is exactly what I'm looking for when I click "Climbing Routes" on a climbing website...

Oh well

I’ll have to make a IG account

What I say to onX after anytime I check out a website that claims to be a replacement for MP...

Of course they're going to monetize it. I have no doubts.

Currently onX business model is to offer paid subscriptions to hunting, off-roading, and hiking gps apps that range from $10-$100 per year. You have to assume that they’ll want to follow the same model for MP, Hiking project, etc. 

For people interested in an open source database/site for rock climbing, check out the OpenBeta initiative: openbeta.io