GPS has made a major impact on our world. How is it a free service that anyone with a phone can access? How is it profitable for companies to offer services like navigation without subscription fees or ads?
In: Technology
GPS exists because the US government wanted it for its own purposes, mainly military. For this reason high accuracy used to be restricted only to military, but they eventually let everyone use it evenly. It’s just like having a public radio, but in space, and it lets you know where you are if you know how to read the signals correctly.
Navigation is what companies did with GPS to offer you a product. Navigation on a phone is a draw to you buying that phone, as you may prefer a phone with good navigation included over one where you would have to buy navigation separately. They can make money on the back end by charging businesses to be featured in the navigation.
I remember way back when you could buy a GPS module with navigation for the Palm Pilot. It used to be a product, and an expensive one. Earlier, the Magellan was synonymous with GPS navigation, and it was very expensive.
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