I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree with James Fee on this post.  Quick synopsis:  He criticizes those who are critical of the Mercator projection used by the majority of mapping services like Google and Bing, and of course their mashups.  Equating the critics to the flat earth society.  I suppose that last bit is a little ironic given that the Mercator projection is old (archaic?) and backwards thinking. 

I of course am a self-admitted Mercator hater.  However, I think you could make an argument that for the original purpose of Bing and Google maps a Mercator projection is appropriate.  Mercator was meant for navigation, preserving shape and direction.  I don't know if that's entirely necessary for plotting car directions on Google maps, but at least it is about navigation.  The problem definitely arises with the massive amounts of google mashups out there.  If a mashup involves creating a choropleth thematic map, shouldn't it use an area preserving projection?  It doesn't really matter if "people" know what a projection is or not, but the mapmaker should!  I suppose this would fall under the tiresome debate about paleo/neogeography, and amateur/professional.  Yes, even I've stopped caring about that debate.  I don't really understand his argument that picking a more appropriate projection would make life harder on the average user.  How?

I also think familiarity with the Mercator projection is an extremely weak argument.  Familiarity with something that is wrong doesn't make it any less wrong.  Maps, and by extension projections, influence and shape our understanding of the world around us.  Think of the kid who is asked to sketch a map of the United States and draws Alaska and Hawaii inside a box in the left hand corner.  The kid is familiar with this placement, but that's not how Alaska and Hawaii exist in relation to the rest of the United States.  Size on a map also has a way of equating with importance.  Greenland is not that the same size of Africa.  But what does this mean?  Greenland, a Europeanesque country, is more important than Africa?  In the least, this probably happens subconsciously.  Why not use a projection that doesn't have a Northern Hemisphere (G10) bias?  They exist.  If neogeography really proclaims to be part of democratizing the web, then why encourage the use of such a bias map projection?

Off my soap box now.  As always, just my opinion.  As I'm sure you already do, feel free to disagree :).