Google Street Maps was an incredible tool in dense urban environments before it became overwhelmed with sponsored pins. 2016 was the beginning of the effort to monetize it, and now it's overloaded with sponsored pins/badges that it's nearly nearly useless for most visual search tasks due to the noise.
>>> It's funny how much public perception is tied to the media pulse of a company. If you read comments on online boards today, you'd think Google was one of the worst companies out there.
Google's brand/reputation is suffering precisely because they positioned themselves as benevolent unstoppable underdog saviors (remember the whole "do no evil" thing?) who have since failed to live up to their mission.
Hypocrisy is lethal to branding narratives.
>>> It's a separate matter how some of it is coming back to bite them now that they have hired too many people who are more interested in activism than doing their job.
Dissonance poisons culture, and privilege doesn't toil in the mines for the sake of toil.