I understand your point that is a trade-off. I think a lot of my issue with google is that the trade off is not presented in a clear way.

You make it sound like a clear and simple transaction: I give Google my location, they give me relevant information based on that information. They add that location data to their model.

In my experience it is not presented as a transaction. I have no idea what information Google is taking/inferring about me.

Are they using my phone microphone to listen in on me? I don't think so. As far as I know there's nothing stopping them from doing that tomorrow without telling me. How would they use that data? How much are they keeping on file? There's no way for me to know and they don't have to tell me.

I found out a year ago that Google maps was tracking my every movement. I would not have consented to that, but it was grouped in with a bunch of other "app history" permissions that I agreed to a decade ago.

So it's true. I do stand to gain from using Google's services. What's hard to judge is the costs. I can't make an educated decision without knowing the costs.