[magicalist]

Yes, I'd love a major mapping service to consider something like http://cartography.oregonstate.edu/demos/AdaptiveCompositeMa...

We now have maps that resemble nothing like any paper map before. There's no reason at all they have to be like zooming closer to the biggest paper map ever made.

(Web) Mercator is almost certainly the right choice for the things most people use maps for: local directions, routing etc. Minimal distortion on that scale. If you look at the "Projection Diagram" on that page, Mercator is only used for the highest zoom levels, however. Above that it's adaptive based on both zoom and latitude.

[kuschku]

By the way, a comparison between Google Maps in satellite view and in map view: http://imgur.com/a/GXczm

(satellite view uses a projection on a sphere, and then renders the sphere from the users current viewpoint)

[panic]

The transition into Mercator is pretty jarring at high latitudes (try zooming into Greenland). I wonder if there's a good way to smoothly interpolate between projections as you zoom.