I think the problem is that you don't actually know what the permission is for. It isn't in relation to anything. It's a blanket permission. But almost everything asks for some kind of blanket permission when you install it. Your only option is to say yes. For mobile apps, things have got better and a lot of things ask for their blanket permission later on in the piece. In many cases, it's still not in relation to anything. When they are in relation to something, you're usually not granting permission to do the thing you want to do, you're granting permission to do anything like what you want to do.

The user isn't giving informed consent, because even if, like you, they are informed about what the worst case is for granting this permission, they have no reasonable knowledge about whether the worst case is likely, even knowing that they've been asked to give permission. The questions are simply too generic for informed consent to be possible. (Mobile apps are getting better here as well, but there's still a long way to go.)

So the permissions aren't actually about managing your risks; they're about managing Google's risks.

How would you like this to work?