Definitely not true for me. My most common scenario is "can you please send me all the photos of the trip/dinner/... in the original resolution" in a car park/train station/street corner.

iCloud album link?

Please no. The recipient does not actually “have” the photo when it is sent.

but they have the option to download (with the iCloud share link, not shared album).

Sometimes difficult when devica A is using a corporate wifi and device B uses a public wifi/mobile data

I suspect most people use AirDrop for the use case where a bunch of folks are physically somewhere together, perhaps on a trip or having coffee, and someone asks: "hey, can you quickly send me that video?". Without Airdrop that isn't always feasible: 1) a WiFi network may not be available to send using other means 2) perhaps the video is very large and would eat your data 3) no cell reception at all, as is common on adventure or hiking trips