They could easily monetize it and still keep these customers. The scheme they have chosen seems all about making money in the short term. One thing they could d

They could easily monetize it and still keep these customers. The scheme they have chosen seems all about making money in the short term. One thing they could do is open up local ads to 3rd party maps use in return for keeping them free. Also just charging a rate that sites can afford would be good, google has more than enough data to decide what the average site with high traffic can afford.