They have pricing plans for business users: https://mapsplatform.google.com/pricing/

I suspect if anyone uses it too much per hour or something, they will block you awhile and ask you to sign up for a plan. This is what google translate does.

> This is Google Earth and Maps. They're free to users, but make Google billions on ads

Citation needed. Google only recently started showing ads in Maps and there is no way it's near billions at this point.

I don't have that citation. But Google doesn't spend billions on growing and maintaining apps just for public benefit. Those services pull their weight (now or prospectively) or Google would pull the plug. Generally their strategy is to drive traffic to search, and ads.

It's more subtle than just showing a traditional ad. When you search on a business (i.e. restaurant, hotel etc) in a given area, businesses are often paying to show up prominently in the results and/or when you're zoomed out.

They don't need to. They can show more relevant ads in search or email if they know where you are on the maps.