I've been thinking of a solution to this for a while now but the problem persists. I'd love to not have to indefinitely increase my Google drive storage, and in fact I have a home server with terabytes of free space on it where my and my wife's photos get automatically backed up. The problem though is that they're so much more usable and accessible in Google Photos. We have shared albums with our friends and family of our kid, of vacations and events. If I don't remember when that funny picture of a duck was taken I can search "duck" or see a heat map of my photo library.
The same problem is true with Proton Drive. I mean, I did just set up photo backup because why not, I have the space. But once they're there what good are they if I can't find them, organize them, share them?
I have Immich. I've even spent countless hours getting my nas folder structure imported without destroying the originals. I'll be using both now. Not a waste by any means I must stress.
Although, proton says it can't find my camera folder so isn't working for me yet.
Synology Photos (what I use) does all of that. The problem is for search and face match it's nowhere near as good as Google and for sharing, I'd have to ask people to install a new app and set up an account, but they all already have Google accounts
I'd have to ask people to install a new app and set up an account, but they all already have Google account
If you're not willing to take that minor trouble, no one will be able to help you. Sounds like an excuse to use Google rather than an actual good reason.
These sort of people must not have family or friends. They obviously don't interact with them much if they just expect them to download and set up something at the drop of a hat.
If you're literally just sync thinging pictures to a remote computer, how do you share albums with your friends and family, search for that photo of a duck, or see a heat map of where you took them?