The problem here is the long-term tendency is to turn opt-in into "if you don't opt in you don't get any of our services".

Kinda like HIPPA medical privacy rights in the USA: when you go to a doctor, they'll hand you a paper for you to sign acknowledging you understand your privacy rights...then they hand you another paper for you to sign away those rights; if you don't sign both, you don't get any medical service. Imagine a not-distant future where if you don't opt-in to questionable services from Google, Apple & Microsoft, you're flatly denied use of any of their products - digitally ostracizing yourself from most of society.

Also they didn't collect the information or share it with third parties and well it was a bug. I don't agree with the OP but I think it's unfair to contrast what Apple did with anything that also wasn't a bug. It would sort of be like comparing what Apple did with security vulnerabilities in Android; the user isn't informed, notified and permission isn't asked for on the other hand Google and Apple weren't/aren't doing so purposefully.