All just part of training people to think that the two options are "all of your data is stored permanently on Google's servers and they can use it for anything" or "your data is not stored anywhere ever and you have to type everything from scratch every time".

Store personal information on a device and not send it to the mothership? Unthinkable!

That would be terrible if it was true, which it isn't.

Source: literally just tried it.

Perhaps not that specific option which controls some smaller facet of sharing and recommendations, however but it's definitely the case when you turn off syncing "Web & App Activity" with the Google panopticon.

Where the history would usually be, there's just this nagging message:

> To see your home and work, past searches, and other suggestions tailed for you, turn on Web & App Activity.

...Which, as mentioned already, misleadingly implies that local-history features are difficult or nonstandard.

I'd say it's more that it quite correctly implies that if you resist sharing your personal life with Google, they'll punish you.

It likely was formerly true. Maps was very limited 2 years ago when I turned off Location History; it's gotten a lot better since.

It used to be the case that Maps wouldn't search places that you starred on that device when you turned off Location History. They fixed that some time in the past year.

No saved places, and it also breaks time estimations for journeys

Amazing, make me feel good about abandoning google ecosystem a few years ago

Best part is I don’t miss it at all, grew up before evil google, didn’t get to rely on their evil parts when switched away

Use waze, it works better anyway and basically uses the same info backend as google maps