Privacy can only be maintained by policies and regulation, not by technology. This hashing and scanning client-side, broken as it might be, is merely a technology. Technology to ensure privacy, as established by corporations, can always be legally circumvented by governments and what they allow or require by policy for their region, if said government is part of a large enough market that companies have to pay attention to it. Therefore the only solution is global agreement to privacy as a human right… and that seems unlikely right now. Runner up would be individual alternative apps for privacy (such as a camera app) but those can be banned by policy depending on the region you’re in, or potentially subject to the same rules/policies. In a democracy, if you disagree, your only option is talking to lawmakers, those who decide on policy. But again, it would likely only affect your region…

Apple brand is privacy against other companies competing with them. Apple has always had privacy concerns.

It's been over for a long while for the average consumer

This is definitely false. You can relatively easily live with privacy. It just takes a little bit of effort. It's over if you don't care and take no action.

The average consumer is largely unaware that they've lost their privacy and if they are aware they mostly fail to grasp the severity.

The average consumer already doesn't care and has taken no action.