You make the point that all cars 'on the road' do the same thing. Then you take a photography example that's not equivelent to a standard 'road' journey.
A wedding would be far more like taking a normal car to an F1 race. In such a case an F1 car excels in that particular form of driving in a narrow set of circumstances, and yet you still could technically take it on a road if it were legal to do so.
In a similar vein, 'supercar' cameras are highly specialised tools requiring significant support to get the most of them - large lenses, powerful computers and skilled RAW conversion. Not entirely dissimilar to specialist needs an F1 car might have.
So you can certainly take a 'supercar' camera as your daily driver but you'll face a ton of hassles and extra work as a result.
“Every camera does almost exactly the same thing, with a few variations in details like optical vs. digital zoom capabilities and memory space.”
“When you’re going about you’re daily life and need to take a picture, you don’t care if it’s an iPhone camera, an Android camera, or a fancy DSLR; all of them will capture the photo nearly the same, aside from minor differences which often require a professional to discern.“
“If you show up to drive around a race track, you’ll be expected to bring a high end car with... [you get the point]”
However, a sizable minority of photographers can use the extra features of a dedicated SLR camera with telephoto or microphoto lens. There's plenty of great photography that simply can't happen, or won't happen with nearly the quality, by using a smartphone.
That's not to say that smartphone cameras are bad; they're excellent today. I have always wanted to get a modern digital SLR, but now I'm thinking a high end phone is sufficient for 90% of what I would want to do, so should I really spend $1500 to $2000 to do that extra 10%? Since I'm neither a pro nor a passionate amateur, probably won't.
The idea that cameras are more diverse than cars is honestly laughable. Do you realize the level of technology that is in cars?
>If you hire an Uber
Not everyone lives in a major city and hires Uber to get around. I've been in one Uber in my life.
Every automobile on the road does almost exactly the same thing, with a few variations in details like cargo capacity and creature comforts.
But cameras vs. phones is a different situation. I've not heard of a phone that can do 100x optical zoom, nor remotely the kind of high quality, high resolution imaging that a modern digital camera is capable of.
If you hire an Uber, you don't care whether it's a '96 Corolla or a Hummer or anything else; it's going to crawl through traffic and get you from point A to point B in almost an identical fashion.
If you hire a photog for an event such as a wedding, you'd expect them to bring some pretty high end equipment and provide us with a hefty thumb drive or two with dozens if not hundreds of gigs of pictures that are far beyond what even the best phone can achieve.