However, the difference between that and Google Mercator is in practice pretty slight, since the flattening of the WGS84 ellipsoid is only about 1 part in 300. It’s not really that big a deal for most uses, IMO. Anyone with a use case where it matters can pick a different projection and either source data elsewhere or reproject the data from Google Maps or whatever similar source. If people are using Google Maps (or similar) data in inappropriate contexts, they should stop doing that.
The bigger problem is using a Mercator projection at all for small-scale (zoomed out) views of the map in contexts like a convenient online map viewer where less savvy viewers are likely to be mislead by the scale distortion, and get little benefit from having straight rhumb lines.
However, the difference between that and Google Mercator is in practice pretty slight, since the flattening of the WGS84 ellipsoid is only about 1 part in 300. It’s not really that big a deal for most uses, IMO. Anyone with a use case where it matters can pick a different projection and either source data elsewhere or reproject the data from Google Maps or whatever similar source. If people are using Google Maps (or similar) data in inappropriate contexts, they should stop doing that.
The bigger problem is using a Mercator projection at all for small-scale (zoomed out) views of the map in contexts like a convenient online map viewer where less savvy viewers are likely to be mislead by the scale distortion, and get little benefit from having straight rhumb lines.