"Alphabet, Google's parent company, reported $112.1 billion in profit for the three months ending in June."
Ah yes, they definitely can't afford it.
I genuinely cannot grasp how someone who is capable of 1. finding hackernews 2. creating an account 3. writing a coherent English comment, can come to such an absurdly wrong understanding.
Scammers generating things in fractions of a second is an incredibly well understood problem that affects every single surface of the earth that has a "submit" button. Even completely anonymous services have largely managed to solve this. Google Maps requires a verified account, meaning it's entirely solvable. It's a non-issue.
Give me $112.1 billion every 3 months and I'll solve it for you, no worries.
Which doesn't seem like such a bad idea now that I've said it out loud.