People also only used to stay in their villages or neighbourhood and don't travel as much as they do these days.

It's a different world and just because we got by with sailing the oceans and using star navigation doesn't mean we can't use modern technology to improve our lives.

You've skipped a rather large period of time in which people would travel, and would bring a map with them or buy one when they got there. You think road trips only got to be a thing after Mapquest?

It was obviously an exaggeration but maps are just an iterative improvement until we landed (for now) GPS enabled devices, in the future we'll maybe have it embedded in our glasses, eyes or brain. I didn't say that we could only start traveling or doing road trips once we invented smartphones.

GPS-enabled devices are the first such improvement to have a novel downside: you can now be tracked, whether you want to be or not.

It's getting harder (though not fully impossible) to find maps.

Where you used to find a stand with local maps in most fueling stations, you don't.

I'm looking at AAA's Map Gallery page trying to figure out if they offer paper maps any more. What's on offer are PDFs for online viewing or printing.

I'm someone who's got several atlases, globes, and piles of paper maps, as well as highway atlases and other paper-based navigational aids. I know how to use them. I prefer them.

They're simply not availabe as they were a decade ago (and for decades before that). And may well not exist in another ten years, except through extraordinary effort.

The "it's just an option" argument works until it doesn't. At which point it's not only not helpful, but not true.

Interesting perspective. This could relate to other nuances on centralization of navigation services. If Google Maps is the sole provider , this means they have authority on what streets are most viable, which shops get prioritized, and even where borders get drawn.

Well, yes. If you succeed in achieving the goal of Organising the World's Information, then you get to organise it as you wish, and as benefits you.