I think Google Earth is about the best free program out there. If Google said I had to pay to use it tomorrow, I would happily give them $500, assuming they continue with updates.
Bonus: Anybody want to nominate another free program as being better than Google Earth?
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
They’ll hear you! And get . . . ideas.
Serious answer: I think it’s wicked cool, but I don’t use it enough to justify more than like, a $25 expense. More than that and it’d be a waste, considering what little time I play on it.
I wouldn’t but I know businesses that would. A big problem with Google Earth is that it isn’t sufficiently up to date: for example, the picture of my house is about 5 years old. For some applications this is fine, but for others, it isn’t.
Nothing. I never use it, personally.
Nothing. It is an interesting toy, but does nothing that I need to pay for.
I would only pay for it if it were updated a lot more frequently.
Serious question here: What do you use it for? I’ve got it, I rarely use it. When I do it’s for silly stuff like when I’m tied down to a really boring phone conversation. I like to see if I can find my brother’s house and stuff like that. So, what am I missing?
I wouldn’t pay for it, it’s a interesting diversion, but not something I need or want that much as to go to the hassle of paying. Also doesn’t M$ have a competing service fro free?
I keep an eye on the Google Earth blog. There’s a lot of cool third party stuff out there.
This is a good example - live air traffic control
I have no use for it, because of it’s resolution, and dated material. I noted a few days ago, that Google Earth is offering a paid for packages. The writing is on the wall folks.
Please scroll down the link page to see.
http://earth.google.com/
Google Earth is worth a one-time fee of maybe five dollars for me. It’s fun, but the information is so often dated that I’d want more from a service I was paying for. Besides, Google is not exactly scraping for pennies- they don’t need more money from this too.
There have been paid versions since day one.
I bought Google Earth Pro and I love it. I use it for making cool images of friends homes, I use it to navigate to places I have never been, I use it all the time. I use the updated info for walk-bys, I use almost all the features except some of the architectural ones and even those on occasion. I love it. I write it off as a business expense and am no worse ofr wear. When it outlives it’s utility maybe I’ll give it up, but I doubt it. I had my laptop with me the other night and tried out the Google Sky with my telescope and was happy to know…those google folks got it right. 
That maybe so, but I noticed a few days ago. 
I guess I should have been a little clearer. I use it for work, although I wouldn’t have to have it. I work as a consultant for the petroleum industry, and it’s nice to know what kind of terrain one is dealing with when talking about an oil field in the jungles of Southern Mustachastan or where ever.
Also, if I am visiting a new city, I will spend a few hours fooling around with Google Earth, and know the layout of the whole town before I arrive. I can’t do that with a normal map, maybe because a regular map won’t hold my interest long enough to actually study it in detail.
Sometimes, getting a good regular map (for free) on the internet is tough. I couldn’t even find a decent map of Havana with a quick search, but Google Earth has everything in high resolution.
Mostly I just fool around with it though. I like the users’ pictures. You can see what people are taking pictures of in pretty much any city.
I was not aware of a competing product, but that would obviously alter my willingness to pay.
I guess I don’t understand complaints about resolution (when they have aerial, not sat images) I mean, I can identify my car outside my old apartment, how much more resolution does one need?
Not all areas are in such hi-res. My old house in central California is more-or-less an amorphous blob at any moderately close range.
Joe
T_SQUARE you live in a better resolution area. What I want to see is not detailed enough, and is many years out of date.
I love Google Earth. When it first came out I spent the better part of 24 hours playing with it.
Upon planning my recent trip to Europe I zoomed into every city which was in high resolution and looked at where the hostel was in comparison to the city’s attractions. I checked out the train stations of cities, the general path from A to Z, and what not. Now, for all the time I spent looking how to walk from Train station A to hostel Z, when I first got off the subway in Athens I went, “ok, uhhhhh, we should walk that way, but lets look at a map.” Nothing substitutes for the real thing.
However, it was great to give me a little perspective of each city. From Venice, to Olympia, I knew at least the general direction something was from something else. It was of termendous value in that regards. Also, just in planning it was great for knowing exactly how far out the cheap hostels actually were from city centres. If I had to have, I definitely would have paid for the services it provided me for free.
How does Google Earth differ from clicking the Satellite button on Google Maps?
Good question; I was wondering the exact same thing