Fuuuuck that.
Even ignoring all the privacy issues with that, it’s kinda shit to unnecessarily lose phone features when you’ve got no signal
That’s how phones have always worked. As long as they are not automatically ingesting data from people without permission. I don’t see an issue with this. At least in this instance we have some choice in what we send or don’t. It’s no more privacy nightmare than mid-Journey doll-e or any of the others.
Using Google products has always been a “privacy nightmare” - it’s not like this is some mega open source phone or anything it’s literally Google’s flagship. Is this really surprising? Playing with fire gets you burned.