I think the counter-argument is you can drag-and-drop to pan the map (a Google Maps innovation) and so scroll-wheel was used with a mouse to zoom in (a “wow” feature from back then). But this is all very 2005, mouse-centric. It makes more sense when you consider Google Maps went full screen in a redesign — which lets them behave more like a game or interactive experience than a webpage. I remember mapping scroll wheel to switch weapons in more than one game—scrolling in games isn’t something you expect to do with a scroll wheel. That said I get frustrated easily on mobile when I zoom in or out in a map and I don’t mean to. It’d be nice to have a little “Undo” button/bar appear for 10 sec just to make life a bit easier.