I prefer an unambiguous and open way of communicating locations on the surface of the Earth, to a proprietary service from a company with a long history of pulling the plug on products.

"Plus codes" are also known as "open location codes", and they are open source, not proprietary, nor do they rely on a central service.

You appear to be conflating other proprietary systems with this open one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code

https://github.com/google/open-location-code