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I'm probably missing something, but allow me to be the skeptic for a moment here.
I think the consumer loses if it becomes an all or nothing opt in for sharing location data. What we really need is opt in for a particular service, but sufficient controls would probably never exist to ensure that is stays with a particular service.
As far as opting in for ads, do you think that anyone would agree to opt-in? That would be like opting in for telemarketing! We can't even stop telemarketing with a national US system and laws to control it... there are too many exceptions. I still get nusiance calls enough to make me not want to answer the phone. (And it's going to increase on cell phones also.)
I'm also suspicious about location based ads. I know it's thought to be important so I'm probably just not forward-thinking enough but I think it will be a long time before location-based information is accurate enough to be useful. Have you looked for restaurants or stores in an area on national phone directories? It's pretty bad what you get back. And if I want to know about restaurants or shoe stores or whatever, I think I'd rather make a query than be stuck with an ad on my phone.
I think anything in my hand should have minimal advertising. It's more personal than desktop web browsing, and more intrusive because we're talking about something like adware taking over my phone, and I won't have open source alternatives either.
But the revenue is the main design goal so I guess it has more to do with what consumers will tolerate than with what is best for them.
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