at this point, the rest of the world should start phasing out and blocking anything American. can't rely on the looney bin for critical infrastructure.
google play services would still periodically query your location, even when on gps only. it's a privileged app so you can't even block it from doing so.
MicroG (on lineageOS or calyxOS), or GrapheneOS' sandboxed play services can help with that
i think the point is that the answer is not reliable. it might be completely correct or borderline wrong, or something in between, and there's no way to tell without verifying everything it says - and then one could look it up oneself in the first place already.
i think there's a different "sweet spot" for everyone. i agree, doing 3h of productivity in 3h is hard enough, but i wouldn't necessarily need to stretch it over 8h, i'd do fine with 5-6h. my last work hours tend to be the most unproductive ones anyway
it's well worth it and quite easy with the WebUSB installer