Opinions vary obviously in this neverending "debate", but iOS is far from being good software unless you're neck deep in the ecosystem and don't know any better. Just because the UI is child-friendly doesn't make it useful. AOSP/LineageOS/GrapheneOS, especially with root, are excellent.
We are "neck deep in the ecosystem" by the mere virtue of actually using the said features. If that means "we don't know any better" then we're not going to find a productive common ground for discussion. We took what was offered. Again, do let me know if you believe there are actual alternatives. One example: Apple Photos' OCR worked better than many paid softwares I used 5-10 years ago.
And yeah I heard about Immich, thank you for the reminder. Guess I'll go scout what's out there and likely post a blog article here on HN at one point.
Also Immich is a great gallery app.