@hashtaggrammar I assume that's Apple's approach "cats would buy Whiskas". They know better what standard user wants. And standard user wants "don't bother me by technical stuff".
Asking as non-Apple-user... Is there no way to archive selected photos/albums in iCloud and those (I would expec) would not be synced back to phone?
@Rado1 Yes, what's bothering me in recent years is that their new tech just isn't a good user experience. But anyway yes I think the only thing I can do now is take my Photos file and hide it somewhere else.