The news still goes crazy over it. When Google started charging for heavy use of the Maps API, people claimed Google was performing Microsoft-esque anti-competitive tactics.
The difference there is that Google Maps was used on a majority of all products that featured maps (outside in-house things from Microsoft, or special partnerships). Google Alerts, Reader, Finance, et al are products they have been closing/breaking/disregarding for lack of interest, which is a completely opposite problem from the Maps example.
the iphone maps app was from google (until the contract expired, and apple created their own)... how could charging themselves for api use be a monetization strategy?
