Above user might not find it to be a hassle at all. I turn GPS off whenever I notice it on as well, but it's pretty far down the list of ux concerns when using my phone. Sometimes an app reminds me I need to turn it on before continuing, but that's all handled smoothly in-app these days. (unlike sibling comment my phone has gps toggle in the slide down menu)

In my case it's a longstanding habit from when I was told that GPS could drain battery faster :p (maybe it still? does, I don't know)

Increased battery life for one. It used to be easier to toggle on older Android phones because there was a default shortcut in the slide-down menu, now it requires going through the settings at least on Google Android.

edit: Huh, turns out you can add a toggle. I can't believe I never noticed that, thanks!

On newer versions of Android, I believe there ought to be an option to edit the slide-down menu in the slide-down menu itself. Expand it all the way, and look for a pencil icon. You should be able to add a location toggle that way.

There is. Invert colors is very useful when reading HN at night.

With something like Tasker this doesn't need to be laborious at all (I have location turn on while certain apps are in use, e.g. Osmand~, and turn off otherwise). And, tin-hattery aside, it has power-saving advantages.

What is an insurance customer getting in exchange for making himself poorer? With respect to privacy, the price of peace of mind is all over the place at this point: the tech-ization is society is recent enough that even well-informed people have big differences of opinion on the likelihood and costs of privacy-related calamities.

If you estimate privacy risk as high, then you're naturally willing to make your life harder to avoid this risk, and you naturally come to regard those with lower risk estimates as reckless. Likewise, if you're in the other camp, privacy-preserving measures look like wastes of time and money.

It's hard to say at this point who's right. We haven't actually seen a lot of privacy-related disasters, the lack of which might seem to promote the low-risk camp, but the high-risk people would reply that the breaches that do occur will only become more damaging over time as we move online.

I'm not in the high-risk camp myself, but I do think that this camp has some valid points, since information is power, and power is ultimately a corrupting force. It should be easier to live a privacy-risk-mitigating lifestyle.

I don't know what you mean about making my life harder. I don't see what I have to gain by using location services outside the rare moments I need it. I'm gaining privacy by not keeping it on.

I think you’re fortunate to not need it, but I lived in an unfamiliar place for a few months and I used my map apps to identify the best routes (public transit, biking, should I walk, or should I Uber?) nearly 3-4 times a day.

Turning it off/on would be difficult, but I do set most apps to only allow location services during use... but the maps I have set to always. I also don’t have the Facebook app installed

The alternative is to keep location on (while in use), but download offline maps.

No idea if the app phones home with all historical location data if you re-enable data though...

Maybe that’s why Google likes to expire it’s offline maps ?

OsmAnd and MapsWithMe are good apps that you can use offline maps on indefinetly once downloaded. They use Openstreetmap of course.

You're probably gaining significant battery life as well.

> I don't know what you mean about making my life harder

You're spending time and effort turning this on and off.

The rest of us don't.

What are you going to do with the additional ~5 minutes that not spending that time and effort has added to your life?

You gain more conscious decision making and that can help you a lot in life.

Sure you could just give in and "go with the flow" because that's what majority does and it's very convenient.

Also people as social beings want to belong to groups and doing the same stuff they do is the easiest way to gain access to groups.

That's the reason why so many use WA and FB and don't even care about their data. They already gave up and make fun about those who haven't.

If you have courage and a strong personality you can withstand this peer pressure. If you are cool enough there will be others to follow you. If not you can also learn to deal with that and in the end it's only necessary to have a few really good friends in your life.

TLDR; You gain more control over your life and strengthen your personality.

How is using location services "going with the flow", but you using the Internet isn't? Are you ceding to the majority rather than having courage and a strong personality?