Free community and paid, privacy-respecting efforts get squashed by the very presence of the spy-vertisers in the market, usually in the idea phase. A world without those products wouldn't fail to have equivalents for most or all of them, and likely quite a few actually free ones (though probably a little less convenient).
[EDIT] I'd add that sensible governments might well consider something like mapping/route-finding to be basic infrastructure and worthy of funding, absent free commercial options. Especially now that we've seen what that's like. So the US might be screwed but much of Europe and Asia could well come out with tax-funded alternatives to nearly-universally-valuable but expensive/extensive services like that.
>Even if you were willing to pay for it, many others might not be.
I'm not convinced that there is a way that google maps could be as big as it is without ad revenue. Most people just wouldn't pay and the only reason that you would consider paying now is because the infrastructure that ad money has paid for has made it worthwhile.
a) Ads on google tend to be much less annoying than from other vendors because google maintains relatively high standards for how it displays ads. I consider it a reasonable trade-off and don't block ads on Google services - they are usually relevant and not overtly annoying or distracting.
b) the fastest possible growth isn't necessarily the highest good. You don't get a better plant by trying to pull it up out of the ground, and things that are grown fast don't always last that well. Wikipedia doesn't have advertising and while it's subject to many criticisms I would argue that its slower organic growth makes it more sustainable over the long term.
b) Not my area of expertise, but google doesn't fill half its website with a plea for donations once a year. As a layman it doesn't appear to be more sustainable than google. What is your argument for the sustainability of donations over ads, ignoring the obvious differences of these two companies?
And no longer... The market peaked and fell 10 years ago for both of those companies while google continues to grow. I'm not convinced that it would be a good strategy for google to follow their example.
To be clear, I agree that ads are not the ONLY way, just the most effective way for many companies. I think that there is no way that google could so easily steal market share from both Garmin and TomTom without ad revenue.
No ads = no Android, no Google Maps, no Gmail, etc...