These are more or less the absolute minimum cost for doing it - and when has anything beyond an MVP cost the absolute minimum? Any real-world project, especial

These are more or less the absolute minimum cost for doing it - and when has anything beyond an MVP cost the absolute minimum? Any real-world project, especially at that scale has much more external costs. There is also enforcement, publicising, security handling, approvals, way more than 1 person to come up with the questions (1 random employee designing the census would be such a waste if you get an average social scientist, that it's ridiculous to propose), compliance, double-checking, etc. etc. Going from 47m to 906m - when you account for the costs that exist in the real world for something as big and comprehensive like this - is actually fairly reasonable.