Furthermore there are many cartographers that work for e.g. oil companies and the military. Google Maps provides a great service to consumers, but there are thousands of map types that it does not support that both the public and private sector need made.
There is little market left for purely drawing maps. That is now just an expected skill among those in the field of GIS.
A map is by definition drawn to scale, having a scale on the map is what makes it a map. We may maintain proportions but by removing the scale, it simply becomes a polished drawing with zero intuition of distance.
I am old enough that I navigated forest/mountain treks with a compass and topographic map as a teen. To me not having a map scale when navigating to a new place feels really disconcerting.
Missing scale in online maps—and Google is a frequent offender—drives me fucking crazy.
It remains 'on' when manipulating in 'map mode' but it again dissapears when you ask it to provide route directions from A to B.
So it is not "always" shown.
The scale of a map becomes relevant if you have to travel more than a few kilometres without an external 'absolute' reference like a GPS.
You could argue that navigation as an individual skill is also obsolete. Equally you could argue that ham radio is obsolete, however there are plenty of exanples of infrastruture faults in disaster situations where ham radio comms was the only alternative for emergency services after earthquakes hurricanes etc.
This is same reasoning why pilots training includes instrument loss scenarios. No system is garanteed to never fail.
Now, I'm not defending my actions, I just gave the example to see I was not exaggerating.
No Google cartographers necessary.
So it is not "always" shown.