You not wanting it != table stakes for a photo app.
I use it, my family uses it, my friends use it. Anecdotal data to be sure. But I think if barely anyone used it you wouldn’t see it as a base feature in almost every photo sharing app.
It is how the default photos app for ios and android work and have worked for years. If you can't search by person or
by the content of the photo you're falling behind.
I would argue such feature only exists on big tech photo apps as an excuse to do facial recognition and eventually extricate such data trough whatever means. The benefit to the user is just a minor side effect.
I would argue that’s another example of FUD. It’s a useful feature a lot of people like. Similarly I find geotagging of photos tremendously useful. I don’t believe that feature was added to phones to extend the surveillance state, I believe it was added because a camera was combined with a GPS and it made logical sense.
Why is this downvoted? This is just true. You "totally into hacker stuff hackers" don't see it, but talk to any normal phone user on the streets and ask about his photo app.
I use it, my family uses it, my friends use it. Anecdotal data to be sure. But I think if barely anyone used it you wouldn’t see it as a base feature in almost every photo sharing app.