And they ruined Maps. It's like Google doesn't want to be in the search business any more. No growth potential to deliver "maximum shareholder value" and bonuses for the MBAs.
I've been saying that Google Maps has gotten worse for a while now, and many people just say that other maps have gotten better instead. But I don't think that's true. I really do think that Google Maps has gotten substantially worse.
For one, it's super slow. I've switched to Bing Maps when I need to get an address quick on the desktop, because it's much faster. Google Maps has tons of lag when I'm sliding around the map on every browser and every major OS.
Secondly, the "natural language" features of searching has taken a major step back. I used to be able to say "[my town] mcdonalds to [neighboring town] chase bank" and as long as the map view was over my town, it knew what I meant. I just tried it now, map hovering over my town and McDonald's clearly shown on the screen, and it asks me which McDonald's I want, all of them from a city with the same name but in another state. It's like it doesn't know where it is, anymore. You have to get super specific in writing your search because it won't just assume you're talking about the McDonald's displayed on the screen anymore.
To be fair, I stopped using a lot of Google services when I used to have a Windows Phone and Google decided that anyone using a Windows Phone was inherently inferior and weren't allowed to use their services[1][2] but even now when I try to switch back, everything seems worse. Apple Maps is a better mobile experience, Bing Maps is a better desktop experience, and Outlook handles multiple email accounts much better than Gmail does. Bing search is just as good as Google in my experience, but they pay me to use it (Bing Rewards).
I'm honestly not sure what happened. Google used to be cool.
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