Apple is interested in providing products that they can guarantee will work, and meet actual user requirements.
"Sync my files without using Apple's cloud" is not a user requirement. Delivering features using their cloud is a very reasonable way for Apple to provide services.
Now, "Sync my files without compromising my privacy" is a user requirement. And Apple iCloud offers a feature called 'advanced data protection" [1] that end to end encrypts your files, while still supporting photo sharing and syncing. So no, you can't opt out of using their cloud as the intermediary, but you can protect your content from being decrypted by anyone, including Apple, ooff your devices.
It has the downside that it limits your account recovery options if you lose the device where your keys are and screw up on keeping a recovery key, so it isn't turned on by default, but it's there for you to use if you prefer. For many users, the protections of Apple's standard data protection are going to be enough though.
I'm a user and I require that feature. Transferring photos over a USB cable to a PC has been a feature in all portable electronics with a camera for the past 25+ years, yet Apple is still getting it wrong.
> Wires? Oh yeah, I remember when things had wires. Good times.
Last I checked the more expensive Macbooks had three USB ports, and the cheap ones have two.
Since Macbooks no longer have ethernet ports, those USB ports are useful for plugging in the dongle when I want to connect the Macbook to an ethernet wire. Good times.
"Sync my files without using Apple's cloud" is not a user requirement. Delivering features using their cloud is a very reasonable way for Apple to provide services.
Now, "Sync my files without compromising my privacy" is a user requirement. And Apple iCloud offers a feature called 'advanced data protection" [1] that end to end encrypts your files, while still supporting photo sharing and syncing. So no, you can't opt out of using their cloud as the intermediary, but you can protect your content from being decrypted by anyone, including Apple, ooff your devices.
It has the downside that it limits your account recovery options if you lose the device where your keys are and screw up on keeping a recovery key, so it isn't turned on by default, but it's there for you to use if you prefer. For many users, the protections of Apple's standard data protection are going to be enough though.
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651#:~:text=Advanced%20Da....