This is what I used to think. That "aphantasia" was just people arguing semantics about subjective experience. But my belief now is that if you think this way, you likely have aphantasia (I think I do).
A couple things that convinced me that the phenomenon is probably real:
1. I can visualize when I dream, or when I'm dozing/napping. But I can't while awake
2. I can "visualize" sounds, so I can hear a sound/song in my head and it's pretty much like actually hearing it. But I can't do this for imagery
Admittedly, neither of those is a smoking gun and I'd also be interested in a more objective test.