The Office has a classic bit about this:

That seems to be an area where OSM could really be at an advantage over Google, Usman. Google might have tackled some parts of the world pretty well, but it's a big place -- and as you say, it hasn't been to all of them or covered all of them well at all. Local participation is vital; I guess we'll see who people in different nations choose to support. 

I donk know why people think that google maps are accurate.

I live in that part of the world where google maps are user submitted and they are far from accurate. I think here OSM is much better than google, but there are still some improvements to be made.

Good points. I hadn't thought about the angle of competing businesses sabotaging each other.

As far as Wikipedia goes, I would say that the fact that those entries had been noted to fail to meet Wikipedia's standards is pretty good. If nothing else, OSM could implement a similar system by which inaccurate maps are flagged.

Thanks for your input--these are all very valid questions. I imagine OSM's encountered them, or at least the ideas of them, and I'm curious to see how they will address it as the site's membership and pool of contributors grows.

Ah, but a sneaky business would gain value in making their competitor's locations hard to reach. 

Far fetched, yes and no.  How many times has company X written bad reviews of their competitors on Tripadvisor or Yelp?

And I'm not convinved that Wikipedia has the "fairly stringent policing mechanism." Just today I visited two Wikipedia pages about companies and in both cases it was noted that the articles were marketing and about business that don't meet the standard for being important enough for Wikipedia.  These notes were from 2010 and 2011 - with no further follow-up by the Wikipedia administrators.

That is definitely a concern, though as with Wikipedia, I think OSM's core community will evolve a fairly stringent policing mechanism.

"I don't want to detour because some business pumped up their store/restaurant location.  I don't want to find out some hackers had fun by removing some roads and building some new ones."

The second concern, I think, is a very serious one. I don't know about the first, though. A business would have an interest in making sure that customers can reach them, however. I'm not sure why they would do anything to make their location data inaccurate.

"Having Apple as a supporter would not appear to be a feather in the cap of a maps database, given the problems with Apple Maps."

Apple Maps does seem to be terribly problematic, though in OSM's defense, I do think that the blame for that can't be placed on any single maps provider. Still, I agree that it's not much to brag about until Apple Maps has its kinks worked out.

I don't know about crowdsourced data.  People have come up with ways to scam review sites, question/answer sites, bump up ratings and likes on social media sites.  What's to stop these same people from impacting OpenStreet. 

I use maps to get somewhere quickly and easily - I don't want to detour because some business pumped up their store/restaurant location.  I don't want to find out some hackers had fun by removing some roads and building some new ones.

The first time I used a GPS, a test unit in a Hertz rental car many years ago, the GPS directed me down a one way ramp in Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, I was going the wrong way on the ramp and their was a cop there.  Only because the cop was intrigued by this new fangled GPS did I avoid a ticket.

I'll some fuzziness on reviews on TripAdvisor - but I want my maps accurate.

Mapping seems to be a job that's ideally suited for crowdsourcing and open source. It involves millions of small processes that can occur in parallel.

Having Apple as a supporter would not appear to be a feather in the cap of a maps database, given the problems with Apple Maps.

Agreed. So far, I think the two major barriers to entry into the big time for OSM are exposure--by now, Google Maps is so ubiquitous that it's simply most people's default--and reliability. I think most crowdsourced sources of information tend to go through a phase of less-than-perfect accuracy (think Wikipedia a few years ago) before the community develops a strong policing method. I am excited to see the future of OSM, however.