Meaning what? They are a means to an end; not an ends to a means. They are like bullets. No intrinsic value; their purpose is simple. Provide data. People will be doing this thousands of times. Once people learn and are competent, there is no further goal; efficiency will then hit a median point.
So what? You might say. Simple; it will turn probe use into an exception and will not encourage their use due to the drag-effect of materials consumption. This is not like repairing a ship. It's firing a one-shot widget into space. Something that will be done thousands of times.
Frontier is 100% on the right track here. Making probes a low count limited resource will not encourage anything other than frustration.
Like I said before, probe spam becomes another gate with no meaning. You play Moon Splatoon as much as you like with yet another fudge. I've learnt not to spam weapons, so I don't run out of ammo- I'd expect the same from consumable probes. If probes were like PD and set to 10,000 ammo that would allow a lot of scanning without 'being a drag'.