Location history != location tracking no matter how much some people want it to be, it's a location feature not the master switch for all location features.
Also, if I turn of location history on my phone, Maps won't show me what I last searched for. Has Google forgotten how to store locally? I don't mind my device saving my location, what I don't want is it being stored on servers out of my control. Google knew exactly what they were doing here, and pretty forcefully persuade you to not switch any of it off.
The Google experience is all about apps backed by the cloud, that's when their apps are at their max utility, I get why some people might not want that but that's no cause to ascribe malice to them.
I feel like there’s a tipping point where “we have the strategy that data is delivered to/from the cloud” becomes a way to punish users who turn features off for privacy reasons ...
Most apps implementation (for example chrome) is to store all profile data in a local store, which then gets synced to the cloud, and to all other devices logged in as you.
If you switch off a privacy option, that simply switches off the saving of that data to the store. In turn, that means it doesn't get synced to the server.
An alternative implementation might be to still save the data to the store (so it's available for local use), but tag it in some way so it doesn't get synced. That proves very difficult though because then the store can become inconsistent, with some other contradictory data in the store in a part which does get synced, put there by the server or another device signed in as you.
And that's not how Chrome works at all. When you turn off sync, it just stops syncing up to Google, it's got nothing to do with local on-disk storage.
Solution, make "location history" mean location history. My mum knows that switching "Location" off on her phone turns of any tracking, she doesn't want that, she likes being able to check in on Facebook etc. When she started finding Google Maps creepy, and went looking to stop Google storing her location, but still be able to use Google Maps, she didn't know that turning off "Location History" doesn't exactly do what it says on the tin. Jo user isn't necessarily an idiot, but they don't know the ins and outs of Google tracking either.