In the eternal quest to remove all useful features and just have a blank map, Google removes one of the most useful features from Google Maps.

I jest, that isn’t the actual goal.

The actual intent is even worse, because it’s all about the ad income. The more Google can control and direct your searches, the more they can make on ads. That is what this change is all about – them deciding what they want you to find, not allowing you to find what you actually searched for.

Google has been and will be corrupted by this insidious and largely-unconscious (at an individual worker level in Google) drive to remove features that allow the user freedom, because user freedom means ads sell for less.