Maybe they are? But I think that would magnify the downside of leaking by 10x for limited upside? Note I'm talking about people who work in Cupertino. It makes complete sense for someone working at a supplier in Asia to leak for money, doesn't really make much sense for a software engineer.

Having worked with the tech press a lot, having written in pubs myself, and knowing quite a few reporters well, I think I can confidently say that payments for inside information are pretty rare. In a previous job, I knew lots of information about many companies under NDA and never had a whiff of this sort of thing.