I currently also use Google Maps for map queries.. But I use it through DuckDuckGo, with !gm. I actually find this a better experience than navigating to Google Maps before entering my query.
I remember that I used Mapquest and switched to Google Maps. I don't remember why but I assume that GM contained some significant improvements. I remember my enthusiasm for the maps API that let me put markers on a map embedded in my website (2005.) Maybe also satellite view. Street View later. So Google did do something substantial with their implementation of mapping.
Satellite and Street view are the main reasons I keep using GM now, plus checking addresses, some car directions and navigation and sharing links to locations with friends. I'm using OpenStreetMap based software for discovering and recording cycling tracks.
That is not how it works for me. One of common things I might do is look up a place, like a bar or a restaurant or theater or whatever. When I do this in Google, I immediately get a link to the website, a link to the reviews, pictures of inside and outside and a link to the map. Right at the top of the page. With DDG, all I get is a link to the website if the place has one and possibly a link to a yelp page. I have to do multiple additional searches and then cut and paste the address into a separate tab to open the map to get the same result.
Late to the party but ... Google Maps. So buttery, extremely reliable, and so many form factors where the experience is the same: superb. I'm afraid it has become such a daily utility that perhaps people don't appreciate just how amazing Google Maps is.
Probably not a popular opinion here, but I like Google Maps. Sure there's some clutter, but it's pretty good at navigation, public transit and searching for places. I don't know any better alternative.
Google maps is improving since the day I first saw it - that must have been around 2003 or so. The improvement on the data is phenomenal if you look at it over then past 10+ years; The amount of times I blindly trust GM to go somewhere increase every year. I suspect the edgecases will be solved slowly, like navigating to a shop inside a mall, a market stall, an ad-hoc gathering, a planned building, et cetera.
Typing in an address, going there by directions, verifying the building front without extra time needed for travel is truly magic.
Google Maps has sent me astray a few times as well. Strangely, I've had the worst experience with GM in the Bay area.
Going to the Golden Gate Recreation Area, Google Maps sent me to a trailhead parking lot instead of the visitor's center. And for a small business near the Bay Model, GM directions stopped about half a mile away, and the map pin was on top of the Bay Model building.
Tried it too. Wasn't that happy. I was also never a fan of different search options in my browser bar so the !bang feature wasn't really my thing either.
Now I'm contributing to OpenStreetMap, because I think at least that stands a chance against google maps and might even help some other search engines. DuckDuckGo is using it and maybe Bing will at one point, at least that would explain why they provide aerial images.
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