It's customary to send off a worker early in the game to scout the enemy's base. I do it, too, but find the information gained to be of not much use, at least in the lower leauges.
I usually can only see their first non-supply building, and whether they got gas, before they wall off (P,T) or get zerglings. Against Protoss I can often see if they have a cybernetics core or a forge, Terrans often sometimes wall off before I get there at all on larger maps.
Now, the vespene info should be useful, but unfortunately I've fallen to bronze leauge (haven't played in a long time and switched from Terran to Protoss), and on this level people often don't seem to have a bigger plan.
The only thing I can consistently see when scouting is whether they are preparing some kind of cheese, placing a pylon or a rax in front of my base etc.. Against most other forms of early aggression I can easily defend myself with a variant of the FFE, just by walling in at my main or natural (depending on the map).
So, I've been thinking it's kind of a waste to send out my probe, and I'd have an economic edge if I don't. If I keep it at home, that's ~50 minerals a minute, plus the 50 minerals of the probe. That means by the time I have a gateway, I can afford an additional zealot, and never have to stop producing workers.
Obviously, that's not what people do. So would that be a good strategy, or where's my mistake?
Best Answer
Scouting is important and you should do it just to make it a habit. Also you're probably underestimating the information you can get with an early scout. You can detect early cheeses from Protoss and Zerg pretty easily. If the Zerg doesn't expand (and you definitely need to keep your worker there until he does so) then something is fishy. With a Protoss opponent you can stay there until a Stalker comes out, which is enough time to get a lot of information. Did he take a second gas, is he cannon-rushing, etc.
It's probably hardest to determine what a Terran does (because they tend to wall-off), but you can keep your worker somewhere close to the enemy base and then go in a bit later to see if he expanded, army composition etc.
Since you're in bronze-league, it's hard to say if what you scout will come true or not, because sometimes people there just do weird builds. Still it's a good practice to keep that worker in the enemy base as long as possible, identify what he does etc. And since this is bronze league, you shouldn't worry about the gain in minerals of just one worker early on. That's definitely not what's going to be the deciding factor in a game.