If we’re talking about OSM vs. commercial services such as Google Maps, this thread is related and already contains an extensive discussion about the topic. Something I’d also like to add, which hasn’t been brought up yet, is that the “future of OSM” in relation to these commercial services doesn’t solely depend on how OSM evolves, but also on how these services evolve. I don’t want to get too off-topic, but at least the follow aspects are important here:
- Just because one service is popular now, doesn’t mean it will remain popular. The downfall of services doesn’t only depend on the service itself, but can also depend on company decisions, court rulings or major changes in civil law, …
- Just because something is presented as being “the future” by the company selling it, doesn’t mean it will be adopted on a large scale and/or replace existing concepts. Yes, Meta, I’m looking at you and your “Metaverse”.
- Any prediction of how the OSM ecosystem will evolve is unreliable because of the vast amount of factors involved and the difficulty in predicting them. It’s mostly just speculation.
- The differences between Europe/NA and other parts of the world are also reflected in (some) commercial services.
Also, is the goal of the OSM project to fully replace other software? In my opinion no, just as the goal of LibreOffice isn’t to make Microsoft Office obsolete, or the goal of Wikipedia isn’t to reduce the sales of encyclopedias to zero.