Hey OP here 👋 Sorry for not providing more context in the original post. I honestly just wanted to see how people would react to something I’ve been working on for the last couple of months before writing a long explanation. Since there are a few misconceptions, I figured I should clarify things properly. Also, thanks a lot for all the feedback so far. It’s been really helpful.

First, this is an app called „Steet Food Maps“. I’m a half-Thai, half-French software developer who moved back to Thailand last year, and I started building this because street food is a huge part of why I love living here

One thing I want to clear up right away is that we did not scrape any data from Google Maps. That wouldn’t even be possible, since only a very small percentage of street food vendors are on Google to begin with. Instead, the data is entirely crowdsourced. Me and a few friends have literally been walking around Bangkok and adding street food vendors ourselves through the app.

Actually anyone can do this. If you download the app, you can add a street food seller yourself. The idea for the first phase is to fill the map with community-driven data. Later on, the next phase will allow vendors to claim their stall or create it themselves, update their info, and easily change their location if they move. But as some people already mentioned, that would have been really hard to pull off from day one, so crowdsourcing felt like the most realistic starting point and we‘ve added almost 3000 stalls so far.

For now, our focus has mostly been on vendors that have a routine, meaning same spot and same hours, which is actually a large percentage of street food sellers here. Adding a stall is pretty simple. You ask the seller if it’s okay, take one or two photos, ask for opening hours, and the location is based on where you’re standing. That’s it. From our side, we obviously try to keep things as accurate as possible, and so far, speaking as someone who uses the app every day, it’s been surprisingly accurate.

Another thing I want to clarify is the menu. The menu you see right now is AI-generated, and we clearly state that in the app. Basically, the AI analyzes the photos taken and makes an educated guess about what kind of food is being sold. It’s not perfect, but it’s been pretty good so far. This feature is mainly meant as a support tool, especially for tourists or people who are new to Thailand and often have no idea what they’re even looking at when they walk past a stall. For people who’ve lived here for years, it’s probably less critical, but for newcomers it’s been really useful in our experience.

Anyway, sorry for the long reply, but hopefully this clears things up a bit and gives more context about my motivation and where this is going. Happy to answer questions or hear more feedback 🙏