There were other apps similar to iPhoto/Photos like Picassa that were less properietary. But... Google's interests didnt align with the consumer.

Apple loses points for a wonky proprietary format, but their interest in providing the product are in alignment with my interest as a consumer. And if that changes, the software doesn't go away.

The only cloud services that I'm interested in are pure commodity plays like disk, email, etc. Everything else comes with that high transition cost.