Sadly, the permissions-by-default problem is not unique to Android. I bought a new iPhone a couple of years ago and spent nearly an hour straight away just turning off all the junk I didn't want. That is now the way of the world, if all you want is a phone for communications and running a small number of essential apps because too many organisations now assume everyone will have a smartphone.

I suppose I should be grateful that I can turn off a lot of permissions for apps at all these days, unlike the malware built into recent versions of the major desktop operating systems. :-(