alt Hacker NewsThe competition has also attached it to a toxic brand and heavily integrated it with actively user-hostile applications. It doesn't matter if your tech is years ahead when people expect using it will mean your image content info will be sold to anyone willing to pay a cent for it.
It's more that nontechnical users prefer luxury brands over utility brands. A much smaller issue, which you alluded to, is that some technical users aren't technical enough to know real privacy vs. marketed privacy. This feature exists in base Android, which doesn't require any Google services.