Ok, let's be serious. Usage of street view data may or may not be useful for the driverless cars. But the original, primary motivation for street view was the ability to build their own map data and remove their dependency on existing map providers like teleAtlas. Driverless cars were frankly too far out, and not close enough to their primary business model to be worth it at the time. And being able to remove their maps licensing requirements gave them infinitely more freedom at a time when their mapping product was especially important to them.