Those who disagree likely never had to calculate their position on the globe measuring stars or desperately tried to compare geographical reference points in a map to the terrain I front of them.
Military without GPS would be blocked. Try navigating in jungle environments where everything is green and looks the same. I've experienced both with GPS and without, that was one heck of a game changer.
I think people are missing a huge impact that GPS has beyond positioning. GPS transmits timing signals. Those timing signals are used in industries throughout the world to sync transactions. Without which, you are left to syncing via potentially untrusted clocks. Finance [1] is a huge example of the ubiquity of adoption of GPS timing.
ATMs may be designed to use super precise timstamps, but they don't need to be. At all.
The interesting timing constraints are between stock exchanges... but in those situations the speed of light is a bigger factor than clock drift, even if you're just using NTP, and you can't avoid speed of light delays/desyncs.
Good point of view. From an ATM point of view, there is no need to rush other than verifying the user authenticity and available funds. Any double/triple/quadruple requests to withdraw funds within a short amount of time can be delayed since they would likely indicate malicious actors.
For stock exchanges you are absolutely correct. I remember many years ago paying so much extra for the fastest internet access and sub-second delay access to our local stock exchange. Even so it was still slower (lag) when compared to those with offices placed very close to the stock exchange building/infrastruture at that time.
