The new Google Maps is so terrible you just have to wonder what happened. What sort of MBA decrees and 10-hour-long business meetings resulted in such an atrocity to common sense.

The most useful feature was the ability to find a location and search for things around it. This was what made Google Maps the one to beat.

That feature is now gone. So the single best reason to use the service, destroyed. It feels like I’ve gone back in time 15 years. It is now impossible to use for that and many other reasons. That one however stands out the most because it is a feature that I used — as many did — often several times a day. Sometimes dozens of times a day.

So why was it nuked?

Here’s my theory. Anyone have any others?

I suspect it was removed because advertisers probably successfully lobbied Google to not restrict the radius of search to nearby locations, and instead nudge the users to drive farther by removing the ability to “pin” their starting location.

Relatedly, for this reason I suspect the ability to find points along a route was also removed.

The only way to think about these things is looking at where the money pushes Google (or where they think it is or will).

And monetarily, this reason makes sense. (I’ve also noticed that it now “finds” things you did not search for on the map, I’m sure also to make more advertising $$$.)

Have been using Bing Maps more, and others. Not the best, but better than Google Maps.