We've turned several potential failure points resulting in data loss into almost every component on the board failing resulting in data loss.
We all know how much they charge for a full board replacement though and why this change will reflect well in Tim Cook's charts.
If you don't back up your data outside of a single entity, you will lose that data eventually.
iCloud is the obvious choice for critical data, within the Apple ecosystem. Outside of one of the cloud services, it's the good old method of having some form of archival media to keep it on, which was the whole draw of the cloud services, when they first came out.
Its a ridiculous decision by Apple made purely for profit
The correct approach to data integrity is backups, not trying to scrape bits from something that smoke has escaped from.
If your data is on a single device, you will eventually lose that data. Some people haven't experienced it yet, but it's a known truth that whole industries have processes around.