The internet and digital technology sometimes get a bad rap, but it is worth remembering just how much they have transformed society for the better.

Consider Google Maps, which turns 20 years old on February 8. It has radically improved our lives. Navigating the world works very differently now than it did in the past. Whether driving a vehicle, touring a city, or hiking a nature trail, it has become an indispensable tool.

Before Google Maps came along, most of us carried stacks of paper maps or large road atlases in our cars. Even then, we often needed to pull off the road to ask gas station attendants for directions. Getting lost still happened frequently, unfortunately.

Even when the internet and digital mapping services came along, many of us would print off many pages of MapQuest turn-by-turn directions to take on trips, but often, it didn’t get us there efficiently and never could tell us about real-time traffic conditions.

Google Maps changed all that. Beyond helping us avoid getting lost or traffic jams, it has also allowed us to explore new destinations across the world.

I’ve used the service over the years to create the equivalent of a personalized destination wish list. Whenever I get a recommendation from someone about a great place to visit — museums, restaurants, breweries, old bookstores, record stores — I pin it on my Google Maps account. When I finally visit those places, I have dozens of pleasant surprises waiting. In the old days, we had to rely on printed travel guides to get similar recommendations, but those expensive mass-market publications did not offer any user tailoring, and they were often quickly outdated.

The mapping customization that Google Maps enables has also helped businesses and other organizations make the public more aware of not only where they are and how to contact them but also let people see pictures of how the establishments look inside and out while also finding out what other people are saying about them. This represents the power of crowd-sourced information at work, with the pooling of collective knowledge helping to better inform society.

There are other societal benefits. When users share data about their car’s location and speed for traffic purposes, it helps state and local governments devise road and tolling plans. Cities also use Google Maps to make other strategic plans for community development. It also makes it easier for the public to find charging stations for electric cars and more accessible places for those with mobility needs.

Perhaps most remarkable is that Google Maps remains free, with minimal advertising, which creates what economists call a large “consumer surplus” in terms of what they are willing to pay for a product versus how much they need to pay. While there is no such thing as a free lunch, Google Maps comes close!

Google Maps isn’t the only digital product that has helped improve our lives profoundly and boosted consumer welfare in recent decades. If there was a Digital Hall of Fame, some of my A-to-Z nominees would include Amazon, Craigslist, eBay, Instagram, Reddit, Uber, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zillow and Zoom. Each has made life easier.

As an old-timer, however, the ultimate productivity-enhancing digital tool over the last 30 years has been Microsoft Word and Excel, two pieces of software that have made life infinitely easier compared with the days of typewriters and pocket calculators.

Life in an age of information abundance hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. Computers, the internet, and digital applications have disrupted our culture and economy in many ways, forcing some hard transitions and new realities that we are still learning to embrace.

The positive benefits of Google Maps and other digital technologies have been profound. I’ll take a world of information abundance over one of information scarcity any day of the week.