Well I usually only ride my bike, so I have barely any use for google maps. I usually use naviki or osmand. Maps is trash for bikes.
But sometimes maps is nice to find a shop in the city and see opening times, reviews and a website link.
Totally. I used to contribute to Google maps quite a bit and got higher up in the Local Guides levels, but now I find myself contributing a lot to OSM. I feel a lot better about contributing to an open platform vs letting a company close up my changes.
I just haven't made the switch to use it as a mobile client yet
As they say in the update, this is in fact nothing new, and isn't distracting or detouring in any way.
It's always existed, and is meant to show you something like gas stations along the way. It's actually quite helpful, even though it is of course - in a lot of ways - ads. But for businesses i might actually need while driving, so fuck if I mind. And also as said in the update, these only appear briefly, and do not pop up. I've seen this before plenty of times, they're really not intrusive at all.
How is it helpful? It isn't going to know what you need because it doesn't know if you're hungry or low on fuel or whatever. It also isn't going to let you see your options and could just as well be sending you to the worst local option because that's who paid to advertise
It's just like any other website or subscription that offers their "suggestions." Whether it's helpful is subjective, but it's certainly not out of the ordinary.
It's pretty common to show various things near your routes? It's a feature built-in car map systems had since forever, at least. Always got the odd moment where you want to detour to a gas station or need to stop at a pharmacy.
There is a client for android called magic earth
There osm based and have a lot of features (some you really may not need).
But they dont track or keep any kind of profile