Even without that philosophical angle, local backup is the only way for backup and restore a phone or tablet 1:1 (except Secure Enclave) as some bits are not backed up on iCloud.

(this can be seen once restored: via icloud authentication is stripped off, with local everything not relying on secure enclave or specifically tied to a device stays authenticated)

Has the USB2 speeds been a huge issue for you?

I also make local backups from time to time. It hasn't been an issue for me. It takes less time for the backup to complete than the charge.

I just airdrop all my photos/videos/notes to local storage and upload encrypted bundles to backblaze so I guess to answer the GPs question the port doesn’t make much difference to me. I do make local backups but skip the photos/videos because I dislike the large single photo library bundle file it generates that has become corrupted more than once so it hasn’t taken all that long.

Check out PhotoSync if you want to do local transfers wirelessly. Super nice to have. I wouldn't expect the every day user to set it up but for super users its really nice to have.

I don't know if you heard, but Apple recently introduced full end-to-end encryption for pretty much all iCloud data, including photos [0].

Just out of curiosity, would you still refuse to back up given this is the case?

[0]: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT212520

I know they have backed out of scanning photos on your phone but that used to be a thing they did if you did use iCloud. Plus I have several dozens of terabytes of photos and videos of my family so the storage iCloud offers (until yesterday) wouldn’t have been enough anyways. I just use backblaze and their unlimited storage feature along with historical roll back which gives me all the storage I need.

I do. Why would I entrust my data to external black box servers I don't control? Besides, iCloud is sync, not backup.

iCloud certainly includes a backup product

Apologies, I should have read the link. Most users conflate iCloud Photos with iCloud backup - the former being only a sync.

The most secret data is data that‘s not there. Why would I choose to trust a black box cloud with any of my data not knowing what’s going to happen to it (now or in the future) when I can just use my PC for that.

And local backups are faster, do store more data and don’t cost a monthly subscription.