Replacing Google Photos with hard drives? What. And replacing Google Drive with a client-based sync tool...? Maybe too high expectations but I was hoping for some level of similar functionality.
Would be interesting to get advice on how an actual user of the Google ecosystem can do this kind of move. There are a lot of applications to research, e.g. Photoprism for replacing Google Photos. A bit overwhelming to review the options and make feature/setup comparisons, considering how many products I use on a daily basis. But it would be nice indeed, to own the data. If the overhead is manageable.