Im kind of surprised that as a species we dont have a conclusive ubiquitous solution to the foggy problem of digital photo storage / management. So many of my photos are just in drawers on old hard drives and phones.
Anyway maybe its getting better. Or maybe Im just stupid.
Interfaces got really good and slick at the same time it became profitable/useful to alienate people from their own data for profit.
The only real problem with it is conflicts, where one file is edited simultaneously on two devices. I think Dropbox has solved that (?), but I'd rather keep my data on my own computers.
But it's always been straight up evil to completely remove all meaningful access to them, and yet Apple et al chose to go in this direction.
Android has good third party file managers though, like Solid Explorer.
With it's SSH, SMB, and Wifi-Filetransfer it has so far outclasses most desktop filemanagers that I have tried.
It might not be stock, but it's easy to get from the app store.
Then my family is confused about where photos live, etc.
Might try something like this instead.