[manigandham]

Again, that's not what the other poster meant by "forced to close". They specifically said maps shouldn't be provided by a for-profit company. That's the opposite of competition.

I'm not sure who you're arguing with because we all want more options, and we already have several from Apple, Microsoft and others. I definitely don't want my taxes being spent on another poorly executed govt project though.

>> I don't have a giant pile of money sitting around.

Maybe you should care about profit then because that's why Google Maps exists.

[soulofmischief]

Google Maps exists because someone at Google had a very noble idea and since then Google has decided it likes service lock-in. It's not a bad product in any form.

But I don't want ads in my map software any more than I want ads in my travel atlases.