[kushagra452]

What is the use case for Google street view? Why is Google spending so much $$$ in capturing the images of streets worldwide? How is this linked to their ad-revenue (if at all)?

[TorqueyTechie]

I had checked the maps for street view of my area when I got the news last month but it was not updated. Today I checked and it was showing the street view available for my road and what I saw made me chuckle. We (my mom and I) have been captured standing outside our gate watching a procession. Thankfully our faces are blurred.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by kushagra452

What is the use case for Google street view? Why is Google spending so much $$$ in capturing the images of streets worldwide? How is this linked to their ad-revenue (if at all)?

Probably enables virtual training/testing of their driverless technology in case of road maintenance, signage, road signs, road markings etc. We'll probably never know.

Either way it's information that can be beneficial/abused.

[arindam30]

I do lot of personal-travels, and many in new cities/areas.

One benefit I can immediately see is when I search a hotel in an unknown town, I can scout around it, its locality, how good is the access, nearby markets etc.

Even with best of online-photos/reviews or even google-earth views, I was always missing this aspect, the surroundings of a new hotel/home-stay, etc. that street-view can now offer.

[acurafan]

Originally Posted by kushagra452

What is the use case for Google street view? Why is Google spending so much $$$ in capturing the images of streets worldwide? How is this linked to their ad-revenue (if at all)?

Streeview enables Google to build the maps more accurately. The current maps are built using aerial data which has its own limitation in places like India. Also things like navigable roads, narrow roads are very hard to map from aerial data.
Streetview also helps in detecting businesses and updating the POI information in the maps. That is where Google makes money.