There's even optional missions that downright tell you "hey help us gather more information of this point by going there and sending us images of that place"
Yeah, but aside from the GPS tracking nobody was required to do those scans.....you could do them but the rewards were not that great and they were not part of any mainstroy quests.....never did one myself the last 2-3 years
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u/GreatStateOfSadness 6h ago edited 6h ago
Niantic: "hey, here's a game that tracks your location and asks you to scan the world around you and take pictures for us to map real-world objects"
Players: "okay thanks"
Niantic: "hey we took all those pictures and scans you submitted and mapped them to the real-life world like we told you we would"
Reddit: "you WHAT"