Last time I checked Maps was still wildly unprofitable -- too many use cases of maps are searching for a particular destination rather than a general class of things, and balancing ad results and organic results has been something Google has gone back and forth on.

The extent to which Google uses user data from maps searches to track user interest is pretty overblown; there's a lot of struggle involved in trying to extract even slightly useful information.

But things like browsing maps, satellite pictures, and turn by turn directions are straightforward losses for Google, and reflect that earlier spirit.