[ars]

Google normally does pay people to do this. That's how most of the streets in high tech countries were mapped.

This guy just wanted to record his home country and street view was a good way to fuse it with map data, and publish it widely.

Google didn't ask him to do this, so why would they pay him? He wanted the photos published, Google has a place to do that.

[jarofgreen]

I know Google normally do this with paid staff. But they do have a reasonably big volunteer pool too, and I think it's fair to ask about them. I've volunteered for many things before, and I know that often (as in this case, it sounds like) the volunteers do get something non-monetary out of it too. Just seemed worth commenting on, especially as the headline made such a point of how much money it was.

[michaelt]

I thought the headline was about how little money it was, not how much. I thought streetview cars were $100k+ and the article was about how the technology costs have fallen.

Obviously hearing the answer is “get a camera loaned for free” was a disappointment.