But how can we possibly get to how things "should be" given our current social structure which essentially says that if you can't make money at something, it's not worth doing? It just seems like an exercise in futility given the reality of how things currently are. It's the same reason why Walmart is so successful despite the shittiness of the company, particularly in how they treat their vendors and employees. Very few people care, though: they offer the best prices in the most convenient ways. It'd be great if Walmart employees would be treated well and with the benefits any reasonable company should provide its workers, but is the average person really willing to give up the benefits of shopping there just out of spite? I don't think so. Similar point here: there will be a subsegment of the population for which this is a sticking point, but the your Average Joe user simply doesn't care. They want the ease and integration Google provides.
Economic structure. Your argument seems very similar to what was said about Wikipedia in its early stage. It, too, was in a very competitive market, with high-quality encyclopaedias being made and sold. But ultimately it won because it grew quickly into a vastly superior product for the average user. OSM will need to do that too, if it wants to become ubiquitous. Right now, there are no features exclusive to OSM for the average Joe. It does the same as Google Maps, often worse. Only when it has a competitive advantage I think it will grow, and the map world will be how it 'should' be. I'm not saying I know how that's gonna happen, but I think it must.But how can we possibly get to how things "should be" given our current social structure which essentially says that if you can't make money at something, it's not worth doing?
I don't think the bar is that high; just making geocoding with Nominatim at least close to as reliable as Google Maps (which is itself not a high bar) would be enough for many applications to switch to it. If your application does enough geocoding that you can't just use Google Maps for free, it gets expensive. Applications being built on it will get you your features for the average joe.Only when it has a competitive advantage I think it will grow, and the map world will be how it 'should' be. I'm not saying I know how that's gonna happen, but I think it must.