Good pricing approach that I think lots of companies should start adopting. But I just can't wrap my head around paying for my online searches. self hosting a free service like SearXNG will forever my go to option for privacy and security
I strongly recommend MAPS.ME as a great alternative to Google Maps. It comes with offline navigation and it's less cluttered than Gmaps. not sure if it's built around Gmaps API, I don't know much about that but it's nice to use.