The original inventor also went on to found Duolingo, which uses teaching someone a language as a way to translate web pages as a service. I like that model a lot more, as at least you get something in exchange (the language learning)

(am google)

To be fair, if you use google maps, and don't have any ethical issues with helping googler, you do get a return on investment, in that you get improved ML capabilities and improved address recognition in google maps.