[snowwrestler]

As far as I know, you can manage your own data with Apple devices if you want to.

By that I mean, storage in iCloud is optional. You can back up Macs locally pretty easily with Time Machine and you can back up iPhones to Macs locally as well (which then gets backed up via Time Machine). You can encrypt Time Machine and iPhone backups too if you want.

Is it as easy as using iCloud for backups, photo syncing, etc.? No, but that’s because iCloud is not just dumb storage, it’s a hosted software application (several, really).