I think it’s important to be pragmatic about the actual value of your work. Quite often it’s zero. So if you get enjoyment, for any reason, out of supplying data to a massive company for free, then that’s a win.
One of the most toxic beliefs around the arts is that they're essentially just a hobby for everyone, including successful professionals.
There's a lot of "I could do that", slightly less "I could do that if I practiced enough" and occasionally some "You're so lucky to be doing that."
Insiders know it's basically a job. There's a surprising amount of admin, marketing, and networking involved, a lot of stress around deadlines, sometimes stress and drama around coworkers/reviewers/critics/consumers/managing execs, and so on.
That's in addition to craft and technique, which even the most gifted creatives have to spend plenty of time on.
No one wafts out of their bedroom and casually sketches a hit single, a symphony, or a best selling novel.
So if people want to write reviews for free - that's creative in the hobby sense. But not so much in the professional sense.
The upside about creative professionals is that unlike hobbyists - and like other professionals - they will get the job done. Whatever the job is.
It may not always be the biggest success, but something will be produced, and it's very likely to be of higher quality than the output of a casual.
I said something approximate to, “I enjoyed your panel. It must be very difficult to meet your fans at their level of energy.” Which was apparently a secret password because the individual just opened right up and poured.
My takeaway from the elevator confessional was summed up in their final line, approximately: “my day job is their passion. How do I admit that I’ve never even played the game?”
This is kind of tangential to the point you’re making, but I was reminded of this because I think fans regularly mistake the end product as a representation of the artist, because often it is. But often it’s just a job. A very demanding job.
edit: oh yeah, a failure mode - some small business owners are like - hey, cheap labor, why don't you clean my walkin? usually that means the end of the relationship
Voice to text typo? You mean "ceases" here?
(Posting in case author is not english native, and needs to know...)
A nicely written review on Google Maps brings fulfillment to the writer, the subject (e.g. business) may find the review useful for improvement, other users may also make use of the review for their better plannings.
If you're against Google, or any other mega corps, consider contributing to Openstreetmap, WikiMedia Commons etc. I have a habit of uploading photos (restaurants, foods, shops, tourist attractions) to WikiMedia Commons, organise them in categories and then add them to Openstreetmap nodes as tags.