▶ This Waze feature says goodbye forever

The Covid-19 pandemic radically changed our lives at the beginning of 2020. Fortunately, some of those changes have been temporary and we have returned to our usual habits when the situation has improved a little. But there are things that have changed forever and will never be the same again. For example, now we think a little more before spending a few hours in a closed place with strangers. And this habitual reluctance has taken precedence with one of the functions of the Waze driving application, which consisted of the possibility of carpooling with other users.

In some countries, Waze offered a service similar to the one we can find in Spain in BlaBlacar Users who wanted to could search for partners to sharing a car, which meant significant economic savings and also an improvement for the environment.

However, the company has expressed in a statement echoed by The Verge that this carpooling function was basically a pre-pandemic function. But now everything has changed. It's not just the fact that many people are afraid of spending too much time in a car with strangers. There is also the fact that since the pandemic began the number of people who telework has increased, and therefore they no longer need a car partner to go to their jobs. These changes have made the company decide to focus on other functions of the application and leave carpooling aside.

What is carpooling in Waze

If you wonder what is carpooling in Waze, the answer is that it is basically carpooling with other people to go to the same place. What we have done all our lives with friends, family or colleagues but with the help of the app to find partners.

If you've never heard of Waze having this option, it's probably because it's never been available in Spain. It was a service that was limited to United States, Brazil and Israel Everything suggested that over the years it would spread and reach new markets, but the The pandemic came to change everything and in the end we will never see it in these parts.

Waze's carpooling operation was practically identical to what we can find in Blablacar.Travelers who have free seats in their car can place an ad to count the journey they make daily and the number of seats available. And those who are interested in making the trip contact the people who drive.

Although disguised as concern for the he alth of its users, it seems that the decision to close the carpooling service has a mainly economic motivation .

And now that all the restrictions to contain the coronavirus have practically disappeared, it doesn't seem to make much sense to eliminate a car sharing tool. But if, between the fear of some users and the rise of teleworking the use of it has decreased considerably, it is likely that Google has decided that it is not worth keeping it available .

The creators of this tool always insisted that it was never their intention to make money from it. But the reality is that maintaining new functions in an application implies maintenance and support work And if the number of users is continuously decreasing, it is easy for them to reach the conclusion that it is not worth the effort for a service that is no longer as popular.