Jump to content

Is Geocaching.com The Only


TinAbbey

Recommended Posts

What is the point of having these other sites?

You have opened an extraordinarily large can of worms with only 9 words.

 

Suffice it to say that each of these other sites provide options that GC.com does not (and vice versa).

 

For some people, their ideas about what a geocache should be allowed to be (i.e. less restrictions on cache creation) have led them to use these other sites.

 

For others, it is the fact that the software behind GC.com is closed source and therefore the ability to mine the data or develop new tools to enhance the caching experience is not available here, but will be elsewhere.

 

For even more, it's just the general notion of "fair play" and that competition keeps everyone more honest.

 

Because GC.com fulfills its role to the geocaching community fairly well in most aspects of the activity, there is no large impetus for anyone to leave here for other sites and so "their point" is not to be a replacement for GC.com at this time. Instead, "their point" is to develop into other places to find caches the way that you would like to find caches as opposed to only the way GC.com allows for within its fairly rigid walls.

Link to comment

ALGeocacher, no offense, but you're really biased.

 

A lot of people really enjoy the sport, and see it as a great thing but maybe they don't like GC.com because they've had disagreements with staff or they've been banned, or maybe the other site is great for caches in their area. You have to look at it through someone else eyes...

Link to comment

They asked a question and I answered it. Not trying to start a big deal but if it gets past the auto censor then I guess they don't have an issue with it.

 

Choices are good, life would be boring if everything was the same. Plus a little competition makes companies work harder which is good for us in the long run.

Edited by ChrisCindy
Link to comment
What is the point of having these other sites?

What's the point of having a Safeway across the street from King Soopers?

 

Why isn't there just one airline?

 

Why isn't Ford the only car company?

 

Why do stores carry Coke and Pepsi?

 

Competition. Anyone can make a similar product, not all are as good as the original.

Edited by Team GPSaxophone
Link to comment
What is the point of having these other sites?

What's the point of having a Safeway across the street from King Soopers?

 

Why isn't there just one airline?

 

Why isn't Ford the only car company?

 

Why do stores carry Coke and Pepsi?

 

Competition. Anyone can make a similar product, not all are as good as the original.

Haha I beat you to it

Link to comment

OT response:

 

A man pulls up next to a little girl walking home from school and says, "If you get in, I'll give you a lollypop." The girl kept walking. The man then said, "Come on, get in the car with me and I'll give you two lollypops." The girl kept her eyes on the sidewalk and continued on her way. The man said "Get in with me and I'll give you a whole bag of lollypops!" Finally the girl turned and said, "Look daddy, YOU bought the Ford, YOU ride in it!!!"

 

A Texan was talking big in a bar one night about how much money he had, how many women he had been with and how much land he owned. A young man, growing tired of all the big talk, finally asked the Texan, "Just how much land do you actually own?" The Texan tipped back his cowboy hat and said to the young man, "Well sonny, let me put it to ya' like this, I can get in my pickup at sunrise, drive all day long, skip lunch and still not get to the other side of my property by sundown." The young man shot back quickly, "Oh yeah, I know what you mean, I used to own a Ford truck too!"

 

Any company whose name is an acronym for "Fix Often, Repair Daily" can't be the only car company. It would only keep the salesmen and the mechanics happy.

Link to comment
I understand but I still think geocaching.com does a good enough job to stick with this site my self.

Actually it does. There is more to the big picture though and so other sites will claw their way to success or die trying. If nothing else that the efforts are out there, will keep GC.com a good site because if they slip up one of the other efforts will break out. Either way we as cachers win in the long run.

Link to comment

Some places have more geocaches listed on the other sites. In my part of the country the 75 mile rule has focused cache hides to track the main cities in Nebraska and large chunks of the state are really under utilized. Some cachers in those parts of the state basically either find the ones they hid or drive all over h*ll and gone to find caches. Navicache seems to have a more lax view to this limit and thus more caches are in the North central and western areas of Nebraska on Navicache than on GC.com.

 

I personally like GC better, but the issues of software and data mining are real to those who want to develop new features like route planning, cache rating, and more refined searching features. Can't access the data, can't alpha test your software. No alpha test, no working version of the software to beta test.

Link to comment
I personally like GC better, but the issues of software and data mining are real to those who want to develop new features like route planning, cache rating, and more refined searching features. Can't access the data, can't alpha test your software. No alpha test, no working version of the software to beta test.

 

no offense but I think they do that to keep an already full capacity server from overload. I could be wrong

Link to comment

I don't know of any site that is better for any area as far as cache listings than gc.com.

 

Not to say competition isn't good. But if you look around, I wouldn't exactly call the existing sites 'competition' and yet we've seen a lot of great improvements and pioneering features crop up on gc.com in the last years.

 

The people running this site are doing it because they LOVE DOING IT. Not because of the business. The business portion came about as a neccesity of having so much success at doing it because they loved it. As long as the love of geocacing continues to be the impetus for this site, it will continue to improve with or without other sites as 'competition'.

 

If anything, the competition between the other sites might inspire a better secondary site than currently exists. But I don't see anyone out there right now with the muscle to seriously force gc.com to advance to 'keep up'.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...