Once upon a time, a smart, enterprising young man (who was dissatisfied with a corporate culture he had joined) decided he had an idea worth pursuing. The idea was to build a POI database by using people probes, who would voluntarily contribute interest points via their Smartphones to his database. He knew it might be difficult to gather this information - the primary difficulty would be gathering willingness to contribute without reciprocating tangible incentives. So, he decided he would build gaming into the gathering process and reward people with easy-to-produce incentives throughout the course of the never-ending harvest. This was all part of the plan to build the POI database while offering rewards for the help contributed. He thought "maybe once I have this data, well, then I can start a business". Today, his business has now entered this later stage and the focus has evolved along the original vision - to build a POI database.

Does this story sound familiar? I don't know if it's how the story actually goes, but if it did, would you be as willing to readily bash the approach? Or, is the bash perhaps out of spite because others also saw the merit and decided to invest? Perhaps it's all part of the plan.

I love haters.