But isn't this reasoning sort of paradox? Google is asking for something here in exchange of allowing to use the navigation feature. That makes it by definition not free - it's just, there is no straight-forward monetary price to it.
You can redefine "free" as "any price other than money" - and lots of people in tech seem to do exactly that - but then, if done honestly, you'd have to allow people to reason about non-monetary prices in the same way as about monetary ones: Compare them, decide about fairness, etc.
What scares me is that frequently, this isn't done - on the contrary: A developer can make its users jump through all kinds of hoops and demand whatever they want - and all is ok because it's "free"!
But isn't this reasoning sort of paradox? Google is asking for something here in exchange of allowing to use the navigation feature. That makes it by definition not free - it's just, there is no straight-forward monetary price to it.
You can redefine "free" as "any price other than money" - and lots of people in tech seem to do exactly that - but then, if done honestly, you'd have to allow people to reason about non-monetary prices in the same way as about monetary ones: Compare them, decide about fairness, etc.
What scares me is that frequently, this isn't done - on the contrary: A developer can make its users jump through all kinds of hoops and demand whatever they want - and all is ok because it's "free"!