Comment by lwkl

Before CarPlay and Android Auto we had TomTom for $130 and map updates costing about $40. The map updates from car manufacturers were always sold at a premium.

I bet Google Maps pays for itself through ads alone. In addition Google Maps gains a lot of invaluable data from its users like new businesses, reviews, pictures, updated opening times, traffic data and more. So no Google Maps isn't really "free" it's paid for by its users with ads and free labor to improve the mapping data.

Having the users split between different navigation software is a worse user experience because the mapping data will be worse. So I welcome a monopoly in this case.

The hard work of mapping is done by the government in most countries and paid for by the tax payers. So you are just paying the car company to convert the mapping data you already paid for into their proprietary format.