For a while, Google was far from transparent about potential costs and some interpretations were indicating that the cost would be enough to destroy certain services.
Whilst Google eventually opened up, despite the prices being reasonable, most affected services had already finished (or nearly finished) their conversion to OpenMaps.
Given the cost of finishing the conversion or sticking with GMaps for a reasonable fee, many took the decision to convert.
Google kinda dropped the ball here and got a lot more damage than they needed to.
If you were a heavy user, it's likely the costs were pretty clear early on, even if they weren't public.
We got costings sent to us in the middle of 2011. However we chose to reduce our map impressions as the prices quoted were nowhere near what we could afford.
Whilst Google eventually opened up, despite the prices being reasonable, most affected services had already finished (or nearly finished) their conversion to OpenMaps.
Given the cost of finishing the conversion or sticking with GMaps for a reasonable fee, many took the decision to convert.
Google kinda dropped the ball here and got a lot more damage than they needed to.