Wow, thanks for sharing that. I just saw New York from a whole new angle... literally...!

The 45° “bird’s eye” imagery was a feature that Bing had first, but Google has been adding it gradually (including at Cupertino where you linked). If you enable the MapsGL experiment, the Google version also uses 3D buildings to rotate very smoothly compared to Bing.

Fantastic! Amazing to be able to rotate my neighborhood through 4 different angles here in Tokyo.

Well, they were sued for providing maps for free:

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2012/02/02/french_...

I don't quite understand why they are charging as much as they are (pretty much unaffordable for a low margin, high traffic business), but it does seem like the free ride had to end.

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.

Is their pricing really that bad? I'd assume it's just what's required to break even.