https://plus.google.com/u/0/118383351194421484817/posts/foj5A1fURGt
About a business moving from Google Maps on its site to doing their own from the available free content.
"$200,000 to $300,000 a year is, at the very least, the same as hiring a very good engineer for a year (and paying all the taxes and benefits and costs and still having a lot of money left). It was enough money to finally push us into doing our own maps."
Somewhat relevant in that free content really is quite good and important stuff. (Also, I've long thought OSM as something that would have fit Wikimedia's portfolio wonderfully.) I remember a Dorkbot presentation in 2004 on OSM - a friend who was working for Multimap pooh-poohed the idea that OSM could ever achieve a usable-quality map. I had been involved in Wikipedia for a few months at that time and considered this obviously wrong ...
- d.