[globular-toast]

Google maps would only be a net good if the data was available under a free licence. As it is they take data from people that should have gone to a public project like OpenStreetMap.

[arccy]

"take", these people would never have produced any data if gmaps wasn't there...

[hatthew]

At one point I contributed quite a bit to google maps, because it was the primary map system I was using at the time. Had I been using an OSM-based system, I would have made contributions there instead.

[arccy]

indeed, osm can't paint itself like a victim, it needs good end products to bring in contributors.

[wbl]

I ran into trouble because Open Topo does not report a stream the 7.5" series does. There's serious data quality issues that can make it not work for some applications.