The web brings Mercator back

Google Maps launched on square Mercator tiles. The maths is fast, tiles stack neatly at every zoom, and shapes stay right at street level, exactly what a navigation map needs. Every web map since has copied it. A projection atlases had retired became the most viewed map in history.

The cost only shows when you zoom out. Since 2018 Google Maps on desktop shows a globe at the smallest scales; on phones the flat Mercator world is still the default. Two jobs, one projection, pulling in opposite directions.

EqualGlobe splits them: the world view is equal-area, and far enough in it hands off to a street map, where Mercator's shape-keeping is the right choice. You are at street level over New York now, on Mercator, where it belongs.