If GPS required you to pay hundreds of dollars per month to criminal companies, most people would still be using paper maps.

Assuming paper maps were the only alternative - absolutely yes. I probably would, and least on a pro rata basis for bigger weekend trips in unfamiliar areas.

That exactly illustrates the way of technology - the first commercial GPS receivers cost $3000, and of course people used the paper maps back then, yet technology prices have always been going down (temporary RAM crunches notwithstanding :)

The difference is that the inventors of GPS didn’t deliberately buy out the entire world’s supply of GPS receivers so that no more could be sold to ordinary people.