We don't know what sorts of other free (volunteer-led) or paid services would replace these, if they went away.

For maps in particular, it seems to me providing high-quality mapping and traffic data should be a government service, with any competition being mainly over interfaces or add-ons to that. The basics of it seem like infrastructure—and also something the government should have already, in one form or another—and not something it's helpful to have lots of companies competing to achieve, or smaller companies being locked out of doing something cool with it because they don't have the resources to generate all that themselves and can't afford to license it.

I think it’s glossed over that people are neurologically different, and some people are actively distressed by advertising. I consider it a matter of accessibility, as soon as some block of color moves on the side of the screen, my attention is stolen from me. Maybe that’s a disability on my part, but it makes the web feel actively hostile.

Yeah, I hate ads too, but don't think Google products or any other big internet companies would exist at the scale they do if ads went away.

Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

What? How can Maps, Google Search, and Youtube becoming worse be a good thing?

“What’s good for General Motors is good for the country.” Or, in other words, monopolies have benefits, but also have a cost. And, usually, at least in the long run, that cost outweigh the benefits.