It’s a bit like asking if intentionally fouling to force free-throws and a possible turnover late in a basketball game is against the spirit of the rules. Maybe yes as they were originally conceived when it was a recreational activity years ago, but at the modern competitive elite level it’s very much part of the game.

Hardcore players play to win.

Looking at the car, the picture quality or other image artifacts is a very useful tactic that everyone uses.

Related reading:

https://www.sirlin.net/ptw

"David Airline's Playing to Win has been the competitive gamer's bible since the year 2000."

Is being born tall against the spirit of basketball?

People have varying opinions on this, and there are browser extensions which will block the car out

Once you know, you can't exactly go back, can you?

I'm a regular GeoGuessr player and I use the meta stuff mainly for getting quickly out of boring locations without losing too much points.

For example South America and Africa are huge and it's really no fun getting dumped somewhere far from any civilization and having to drive hours to get any real life geographical hints.

We can only hope that someday someone at Google takes the time to improve the car segmenter.

As far as I know, in most countries there is no such variety in what you can see on the Google car. But meta are used by expert players.