Exactly.
Can a company run Full Bitcoin nodes in the range of 1,000 to 5,000 nodes, around the world? Doubt it. Google, Apple, Microsoft, sure. But can they beat SPR's decentralized model in terms of no trust required? A community of thousands can match any big company or government. Dash has proven this already.
If you are looking for data, which would you prefer, a company making a profit with a small number of nodes, or a public service project that has many thousands of nodes?
Scripts / APIs are relatively easy. I've allowed for a bounty in the revenue streams to pay for requested scripts, all open source so they can be vetted.
Two servers with 64GB RAM each and a few TB of storage can easily run a thousand full BTC nodes. This isn't a big expense, you can buy this stuff for peanuts on ebay. Physical location is irrelevant unless a few milliseconds of latency is critical to you, and if it is then you just set up your servers 'next door' in network terms to your target(s).
Or, alternatively, if a bunch of SPR enthusiasts can rent a bunch of VPS instances, anyone can.
I'm not being obnoxious for the sake of it here, I'm just trying to pin down the value proposition of data mining via SPR nodes vs. Inquisitive Inc. doing it themselves or using another provider.
I don't see any intrinsic difference in trust between using any one outsorced data mining provider vs. any other.
SPR nodes could compete on cost I suppose if their operation is subsidised anyway by other reward structures.