Worried About Caltopo

[SKLund]

Has anyone noticed that Caltopo is getting slow lately? I am very concerned about this because I am a pro member and have a lot of data on the site. I know that it is run by one guy. There is no company behind it except for the one (very talented) person. This very disconcerting. I have two questions:

01) Have you noticed it getting slower.
02) What alternative online map sites are out there, desktop sites are preferable.

Contacting Caltopo has produced no results ever.

 

[fiber]

I know of Hill map, Gmap4, and Hike Arizona. Hike Arizona is the closest to CalTopo, and they do have maps of areas outside of Arizona. Hill map and Gmap4 are much simpler tools.

 

[Brendan S]

That new (?) Mapbuilder layer that is the default layer is slow but everything else runs fine for me. He has recent blog postings and new stuff so seems everything is fine. Maybe try contacting him through a comment on his blog.

I use hillmap occasionally for the awesome split screen option but everything else and especially for printing I prefer caltopo.

 

[Aldaron]

That Mapbuilder layer is weird. It looks good, but it does load slow and it doesn't update the Open Street Map data very regularly. But I haven't had any other trouble with CalTopo in general.

 

[Ben]

i haven't noticed any thing.

 

[slc_dan]

I also skip the mapbuilder layer, and have no problems with it being slow. I use it daily.

Every now and then I save all of my .gpx/kml files into google drive for redundancy, it's quite simple.

 

[Matt Jacobs]

CalTopo owner here, full disclosure that I stumbled onto this and am not a regular backcountrypost.com user.

SKLund, how have you been trying to contact me? Was there a bounce message or did you just never get a response?

On the performance front, I'd concur with the comments here that the problem is likely linked to the MapBuilder layers, and would ask if you're seeing the same issue with a different map background. I've noticed the slowdown lately as well, but my primary development laptop has been out for warranty repair for more than 2 weeks now (after Apple promised me a 3-5 day turnaround) and I decided to avoid making any non-emergency fixes while it was out, to lessen the chance of accidentally causing a bigger problem. At this point I'm getting pretty frustrated about the whole thing, and if I were to buy a new machine I could get spun back up inside of a day, but I haven't because I keep getting led to believe that my laptop will be back in another day or two.

The delayed update from OSM is because my decision to show trail mileages (which requires breaking up line segments at intersections, which OSM doesn't do) means that I haven't figured out how to take weekly diffs and instead need to do a full import followed by several days of postgis rebuilding the trail topology. So I only grab a new copy of the OSM data once every several months.

As to CalTopo's longevity, as somewhat outlined on the blog, the commercial vs hobby project train has long since left the station. My 2016 AWS bill was $50k, which isn't just operational costs but includes a lot of money spent on new development, such as the new imagery layers and offline support. Despite it being my full-time job for much of the year, profit from my schedule C was a whopping $5k.

I suppose you could look at that and conclude that I'm going broke running the site and will soon walk away in frustration. But a more accurate take would be that I've decided to make a significant investment in growing the site (which technically is owned by an LLC, which is then owned by me), because I think there's a lot of commercial potential that I'd never be able to realize without it. Fortunately I'm in a position to be able to do that, but I'm kind of past the point where I can just give up and let things collapse under their own weight. Also rest assured that if I did need an exit, there's too much commercial value in the site as-is for it to just disappear out of the blue. Someone would buy it, although maybe not at a price I'd like, or with a plan that you'd like.

 

[SKLund]

CalTopo owner here, full disclosure that I stumbled onto this and am not a regular backcountrypost.com user.

SKLund, how have you been trying to contact me? Was there a bounce message or did you just never get a response?

On the performance front, I'd concur with the comments here that the problem is likely linked to the MapBuilder layers, and would ask if you're seeing the same issue with a different map background. I've noticed the slowdown lately as well, but my primary development laptop has been out for warranty repair for more than 2 weeks now (after Apple promised me a 3-5 day turnaround) and I decided to avoid making any non-emergency fixes while it was out, to lessen the chance of accidentally causing a bigger problem. At this point I'm getting pretty frustrated about the whole thing, and if I were to buy a new machine I could get spun back up inside of a day, but I haven't because I keep getting led to believe that my laptop will be back in another day or two.

The delayed update from OSM is because my decision to show trail mileages (which requires breaking up line segments at intersections, which OSM doesn't do) means that I haven't figured out how to take weekly diffs and instead need to do a full import followed by several days of postgis rebuilding the trail topology. So I only grab a new copy of the OSM data once every several months.

As to CalTopo's longevity, as somewhat outlined on the blog, the commercial vs hobby project train has long since left the station. My 2016 AWS bill was $50k, which isn't just operational costs but includes a lot of money spent on new development, such as the new imagery layers and offline support. Despite it being my full-time job for much of the year, profit from my schedule C was a whopping $5k.

I suppose you could look at that and conclude that I'm going broke running the site and will soon walk away in frustration. But a more accurate take would be that I've decided to make a significant investment in growing the site (which technically is owned by an LLC, which is then owned by me), because I think there's a lot of commercial potential that I'd never be able to realize without it. Fortunately I'm in a position to be able to do that, but I'm kind of past the point where I can just give up and let things collapse under their own weight. Also rest assured that if I did need an exit, there's too much commercial value in the site as-is for it to just disappear out of the blue. Someone would buy it, although maybe not at a price I'd like, or with a plan that you'd like.

Matt thanks for getting back. There is a lot to get through here but I'm in the back country now, using my Caltopo maps (of course!). So...When l get back I will attempt to debug the problem from my end. I don't think it's Map builder since I rarely use it. The problem is slow refresh on topo or satellite layers when zooming. Internet connection is good. I may have changed a setting or something.

I will post my findings here.

Cheers

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

 

[slc_dan]

CalTopo owner here, full disclosure that I stumbled onto this and am not a regular backcountrypost.com user.

SKLund, how have you been trying to contact me? Was there a bounce message or did you just never get a response?

On the performance front, I'd concur with the comments here that the problem is likely linked to the MapBuilder layers, and would ask if you're seeing the same issue with a different map background. I've noticed the slowdown lately as well, but my primary development laptop has been out for warranty repair for more than 2 weeks now (after Apple promised me a 3-5 day turnaround) and I decided to avoid making any non-emergency fixes while it was out, to lessen the chance of accidentally causing a bigger problem. At this point I'm getting pretty frustrated about the whole thing, and if I were to buy a new machine I could get spun back up inside of a day, but I haven't because I keep getting led to believe that my laptop will be back in another day or two.

The delayed update from OSM is because my decision to show trail mileages (which requires breaking up line segments at intersections, which OSM doesn't do) means that I haven't figured out how to take weekly diffs and instead need to do a full import followed by several days of postgis rebuilding the trail topology. So I only grab a new copy of the OSM data once every several months.

As to CalTopo's longevity, as somewhat outlined on the blog, the commercial vs hobby project train has long since left the station. My 2016 AWS bill was $50k, which isn't just operational costs but includes a lot of money spent on new development, such as the new imagery layers and offline support. Despite it being my full-time job for much of the year, profit from my schedule C was a whopping $5k.

I suppose you could look at that and conclude that I'm going broke running the site and will soon walk away in frustration. But a more accurate take would be that I've decided to make a significant investment in growing the site (which technically is owned by an LLC, which is then owned by me), because I think there's a lot of commercial potential that I'd never be able to realize without it. Fortunately I'm in a position to be able to do that, but I'm kind of past the point where I can just give up and let things collapse under their own weight. Also rest assured that if I did need an exit, there's too much commercial value in the site as-is for it to just disappear out of the blue. Someone would buy it, although maybe not at a price I'd like, or with a plan that you'd like.

A huge thanks from a subscriber here. Love your site, and thanks for all the hard work. Everything I used to do in GEarth now seams slow and a pain. Huge thanks!

 

[Bob]

Acme mapper 2.1.

Personally I store all mine on on my own computer with Garmin BaseCamp. Then nothing gets lost.

 

[SKLund]

I made a couple of changes to my Caltopo configuration and it seems to be working better now. The two changes I made were in the "Drawing" submenu. The first was to reduce the vertices from 2000 to 1000. I had changed it to 2000 vertices a month ago to get a more accurate reading on tracks. The second was change the size from large to small. Large is the default. I am getting a better redraw now and better change to different layers.

 

[SKLund]

CalTopo owner here, full disclosure that I stumbled onto this and am not a regular backcountrypost.com user.

SKLund, how have you been trying to contact me? Was there a bounce message or did you just never get a response?

On the performance front, I'd concur with the comments here that the problem is likely linked to the MapBuilder layers, and would ask if you're seeing the same issue with a different map background. I've noticed the slowdown lately as well, but my primary development laptop has been out for warranty repair for more than 2 weeks now (after Apple promised me a 3-5 day turnaround) and I decided to avoid making any non-emergency fixes while it was out, to lessen the chance of accidentally causing a bigger problem. At this point I'm getting pretty frustrated about the whole thing, and if I were to buy a new machine I could get spun back up inside of a day, but I haven't because I keep getting led to believe that my laptop will be back in another day or two.

The delayed update from OSM is because my decision to show trail mileages (which requires breaking up line segments at intersections, which OSM doesn't do) means that I haven't figured out how to take weekly diffs and instead need to do a full import followed by several days of postgis rebuilding the trail topology. So I only grab a new copy of the OSM data once every several months.

As to CalTopo's longevity, as somewhat outlined on the blog, the commercial vs hobby project train has long since left the station. My 2016 AWS bill was $50k, which isn't just operational costs but includes a lot of money spent on new development, such as the new imagery layers and offline support. Despite it being my full-time job for much of the year, profit from my schedule C was a whopping $5k.

I suppose you could look at that and conclude that I'm going broke running the site and will soon walk away in frustration. But a more accurate take would be that I've decided to make a significant investment in growing the site (which technically is owned by an LLC, which is then owned by me), because I think there's a lot of commercial potential that I'd never be able to realize without it. Fortunately I'm in a position to be able to do that, but I'm kind of past the point where I can just give up and let things collapse under their own weight. Also rest assured that if I did need an exit, there's too much commercial value in the site as-is for it to just disappear out of the blue. Someone would buy it, although maybe not at a price I'd like, or with a plan that you'd like.

Matt I am out of the field now and can respond to the business aspects. I and many others feel that you have a superior product. I can only think that one of the big outfits would and could buy you out and you walk away with enough $$ for a fully pimped out 4x4 Sports Mobile and a lot more. That outcome is based on revenue that can be expected. 5K is not enough and I assume you put a lot of time into this. What I would do (that's me now) is just up the price of the product to make it reasonably profitable for the time you put in. Other mapping outfits should be paying a license fee for referencing your stuff.. At renew time, people can pay the price or walk. No one should be using this thing for free. If they don't want pay the cost, ciao to them and maybe Caltopo also if it is not working as a business.

 

[Aldaron]

I would be one of those who walks away. It's a great product, but there are many other options.

 

[slc_dan]

Matt I am out of the field now and can respond to the business aspects. I and many others feel that you have a superior product. I can only think that one of the big outfits would and could buy you out and you walk away with enough $$ for a fully pimped out 4x4 Sports Mobile and a lot more. That outcome is based on revenue that can be expected. 5K is not enough and I assume you put a lot of time into this. What I would do (that's me now) is just up the price of the product to make it reasonably profitable for the time you put in. Other mapping outfits should be paying a license fee for referencing your stuff.. At renew time, people can pay the price or walk. No one should be using this thing for free. If they don't want pay the cost, ciao to them and maybe Caltopo also if it is not working as a business.

Or get some ad revenue.

 

[Matt Jacobs]

No one should be using this thing for free. If they don't want pay the cost, ciao to them and maybe Caltopo also if it is not working as a business.

The nice thing about software is that while fixed costs can be high, the marginal cost of supporting each additional user is incredibly small. Booting non-paying users wouldn't save me much, but it would restrict growth, which is ultimately the key to making the site financially viable. You're right that $5k isn't enough, but in part that's low because I'm reinvesting a significant amount back into new development. User visits and subscription revenue are both up > 70% year over year, and there are lots of free users who eventually become subscribers after they use the site more and eventually want/need specific features. Locking everything up behind a paywall would help gas things up in the short term, but IMO it would ultimately be shortsighted.

 

[SKLund]

The nice thing about software is that while fixed costs can be high, the marginal cost of supporting each additional user is incredibly small. Booting non-paying users wouldn't save me much, but it would restrict growth, which is ultimately the key to making the site financially viable. You're right that $5k isn't enough, but in part that's low because I'm reinvesting a significant amount back into new development. User visits and subscription revenue are both up > 70% year over year, and there are lots of free users who eventually become subscribers after they use the site more and eventually want/need specific features. Locking everything up behind a paywall would help gas things up in the short term, but IMO it would ultimately be shortsighted.

Caltopo lives!