There’s no reason that the iCloud interface couldn’t be an API that can be any one of the competition, and if they design it reasonably, it could even be encrypted and secure.

Finally...

And their app store too hopefully

Apple has gotten away with so much crap that other vendors never would have been able to, from misleading ads, to forcing developers to buy apple hardware to develop software for their store

I want to be able to use Nextcloud the same way you’d have iCloud, without any hiccups in background sync and all this mess we have right now…

Also they are in breach of GDPR too because they’re not allowing data portability, if you request an iCloud Photos dump, you’ll get scrambled & non-usable files which you cannot easily import in whichever media platform you want …

Choice of cloud backup, choice of app store.

Choice of cloud for photo library!