Output & Conclusion

Gif of Google Earth time lapse over Moscow, Idaho.
Gif of Google Earth time lapse over Moscow, Idaho demonstrating lower fidelity.
Gif of ArcGIS World Imagery time lapse over Moscow, Idaho.
Gif of ArcGIS World Imagery time lapse over Moscow, Idaho, demonstrating improved fidelity but shortened, more contemporary time span.
Gif of ArcGIS World Imagery time lapse over Moscow, Idaho.
Gif of Google Earth Engine time lapse over Moscow, Idaho, demonstrating improved fidelity and increased time span but difficulty of framing due to the variety of datasets.

Conclusion

I hope this has been an insightful comparison of these platforms and their various strengths and weaknesses. For those needing a tool with around 15 years of coverage, I highly recommend the intuitive ArcGIS World Imagery Wayback platform.

That said, I am personally very interested in creating more work in Google Earth Engine and the seemingly limitless ability you have to produce still, moving and interactive maps. I also feel like I may missing some central concepts of the code that would weed out so many of the false positives, incomplete images and datasets with conflicting color configurations that complicated my first interactions with the platform.

Thank you for your time and feel free to reach out if you have any questions about this survey.