I, too, was a fan of Google Photos in the early days. But I've decided that privacy is more important than the convenience of its syncing feature. You never know how that data might come back and bite you in the future.

I have an iPhone but I don't use iCloud's backup or sync feature either, I just store my photos locally. I backup my iPhone to my iMac, and I backup my iMac to my Synology NAS in my closet. I try to keep my private data private.

One of the favorite features I have of the Plex Server, is that the Plex app will automatically back up photos on your phone to your Plex server, which can run on Synology as well (mine's on an ODroid HC connected up to a multi-TB drive with backup drive).

As someone for whom this was a bridge too far, thanks for the information. This is a useful alternative to pull it local and still get the syncing that was the reason I let Google photos mostly do as it pleased after I got a Pixel.

Our Plex AppleTV app has begun aggressively pushing its own content lately. It’s a nuisance to navigate to where our personal content is now

I've submitted a feature request to the Photos app team for syncing to a network share as an alternative to iCloud. The Files app recently got network share support so here's to fingers crossed that Photos can get it too.

Edit: I want Photos app to have this feature. Other apps can do it on iOS but they have to play location services shenanigans to get it to work in the background and I don't do that. The Photos app has special abilities.

Do you use any remote backups? What do you do in case of a fire?

Not everyone thinks this way, there is an expectation of privacy in the minds of most users.