Waze is quite a different experience than Google Maps when driving, so it’s made sense to keep them as two separate apps.

Google Maps is “I want to get from point A to point B in a normal way.”

Waze is “I want the most aggressively quick way; no back street is too small for me.”

I feel like OP has gone too far with the editorialised headline this time, as the only thing that’s happening at this point is switching Waze over to use the standard Google ad platform rather than their custom system.