Reminds me of John Carmack complaining that it was quicker to send a packet of data internationally compared to drawing on screen: https://www.geek.com/chips/john-carmack-explains-why-its-fas...

More relevant to the article, I fully agree with the authors upset at trying to do two parts of the same task in google maps, it's entirely infuriating.

Edit: duplicate submission: one directly on twitter, this one through hte threaded reader. The other submission has >350 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21835417