aderutter

I think we can all agree the only thing in contention is the on-device aspect which many believe is a privacy violation and clearly will not fly as an option globally.

This should all be done in the cloud - I mistakenly thought they already were... 

So in our house we have to bin all of our lightning cables? That seems like a pretty big waste. I guess a market for lightning to usb-c converters might explode.

More likely though in my opinion is that iPhones will go port-less before any law is passed making this issue moot.

For some it will still be better value than Apple Music. It just depends what you need and how much you will use it. Using it for one thing once a year might make it a bargain for some businesses for example. 

Maybe https://inhope.org/EN/articles/what-is-image-hashing will help the non-techies?

Note that image hashing is not reversible so one cannot use an image hash to create another image that matches, or be used to modify an existing image so that it matches the original image.

Also, nobody is forced into using iCloud. I for one assumed this kind of system had already been in place for years! 

Get yourself a new cable if you need usb-a.
or at least an adaptor for a couple of dollars.