At $20 they were disruptive, at $65, they are dead to me. I will be interesting to see how many others leave. The "teaser" cable package is more channels and half the cost.
I think it is just a continuing trend in Google getting squeezed harder and harder by the falling search advertising margins and no replacement or even side hustle to compensate.
Just before Google winks out of relevance I expect to see them try to charge people to use maps.
I don't disagree, but how much of that pricing authority is directly related to market share? The billion dollar question is, if Google charged $9.99/month for access to Google Maps, what would that do to their market share if OSM, Apple, and Microsoft/Bing were still "free" ?
I've observed that as the other search services have improved their free offerings, it has negatively affected what Google can charge to advertise on their search results, which has put pressure on their profitability. So at what dollar cost do the free alternatives become "good enough" and everyone switches?
As an aside, I've already switched to Apple maps because it lets me continue to save favorite places and addresses without having to turn on privacy eroding options (web and location history in Google). But I recognize I maybe unique in that I value that aspect highly.
Honestly, I'd be happy to pay for Google Maps if it meant my recommendations would be free of sponsorship bias. Google Maps is hands-down my favorite app.
But, I'd feel pretty bad if everybody had to pay for Google Maps, since so many people rely on it.
I agree, but to charge for it would be an admission from Google that their profitability is under siege. It also opens the door to competition from Apple and Microsoft who could continue to offer free maps (their side hustles* (phones and Apps/OSes) continue to cover those costs).
The challenge I think for Google would be to charge what supporting maps actually costs to have the unit be revenue neutral. Street view fleets, satellite imagery, and 100,000+ machines with multi-petabyte data sets cost a bit, not to mention the engineers who work on massaging the data, developing the hardware, and operating the equipment.
Would you pay $25/month for Google Maps access? Or would you switch to Open Street Maps, Bing Maps and/or Apple Maps which were still free.
* In theory everything is a side hustle to the business of collecting data on people but Microsoft and Apple have revenue streams that aren't as threatened by increasing data privacy efforts that Google's are.
I think it is just a continuing trend in Google getting squeezed harder and harder by the falling search advertising margins and no replacement or even side hustle to compensate.
Just before Google winks out of relevance I expect to see them try to charge people to use maps.