Whenever I look at Google Maps at a global or polar area, the projection hurts. Is there any web service with a zoomable world map, that uses an equal-area projection — preferably pseudorectangular such as the Mollweide projection? Even National Geographics online map uses Mercator.
Another alternative, Google Earth, does not particularly distorts the Earth, but does not give a global view either.
See also: Why has Web Mercator (auxiliary sphere) become the web map standard?
Edit 2018-08-24: Google Maps no longer uses Web Mercator, but has moved to what appears to be an orthographic projection.