Didnt they say that they would always be separate teams? Im not surprised by this move but surprised because I could swear when they bought it they said they would maintain both teams...
The data sharing between the 2 services has mostly gotten them to a point where they both give very comfortable estimates about traffic.
Waze is still better because someone Maps will tell you to turn too early when Waze's timing is more realistic.
I saw the most spectacular failure like this on Good Friday this year, where I had to take a cross-town trip and Waze was telling my Bolt driver that it would take 2h+ (and trying to make them avoid all large roads), when in reality and in Google Maps, the city was essentially empty and the trip took ~30 minutes.
The 2h+ estimate was definitely correct for a normal day, but that day was part of a long weekend and no one was around, and yet Waze had absolutely no idea. Even on normal days, it typically significantly overestimates how long rush hour lasts by at least another hour.
Maybe this is somehow specific to my city, but at least it shows that in some places Google Maps and Waze use significantly different data (or weigh different sources very differently).
But we should find a better way to describe this than using language like "always" and "forever"...
I started using mIRC as a teenager, I had almost no money so used pirated versions. Many years later, since the program gave me many hours of enjoyment (and through it I had the first conversations the person who is now my wife, no less!), I bought a couple of licenses because I felt I owed it to the devs.
I don't regret doing that, of course... but there's no way I'll be renewing my lifetime licenses. The contract I signed gave me a lifetime right to use the software so my understanding is that if the dev wants to remove that right from me, it's completely legitimate to resort to piracy, and I doubt a court could say otherwise.
Google says many things. Always believing them is a huge mistake.