There's been a lot of discussion here about the new update, and a lot of it good stuff. A hot button issue has been the removal of tracking all together and Niantic's silence on the matter.

I've seen a lot of explanations on why removing tracking improves user experience by making encounters more random like the preceding games. Anecdotal evidence that the majority of players were not even using the tracking feature. I've even seen people suggesting removing the nearby feature all together.

It stands to reason that the majority of players are in urban arias but all of the suburban and rural players were at an extreme disadvantage already compared to urban players and since the 3 step bug began the rate at witch suburban and rural players can catch pokemon has been severely cut. The removal of this feature only deepens these frustrations.

Tracking was crucial for rural and suburban players, espically when you go outside and see there are not eve 9 pokemon near by. Since the "3 step bug" I have walked for half an hour without encountering a single pokemon. The social aspect of the game people seem to be using as a justification for these changes often does not exist in low density population areas when you or you and a friend may be the only people playing in the neighborhood.

TL;DR The inability to track pokemon has cut rural and suburban players' capture rate of pokeomon and this recent update is a move in the wrong direction for this population of the game. Though smaller than the urban population of players these players still want to have fun so please keep them in mind when you are justifying the removal of the tracking feature.

Of course since the Rural and Suburban populations are small they are probably not worth considering from a financial perspective and so these populations may ultimately be left in the dust... Oh well...

Edit: spelling