Hostage? You can export all of your Google Photos collection (I did that myself a month ago, to migrate to my NAS). It’s little annoying, and had some bugs with metadata, but possible.

The last sentence is the explanation

Having a small puddle in front of your house, doesn’t mean you’re held hostage.

Dramatic and exaggerated hyperboles only help to turn conversation into flame wars.

It removed the feature that syncs my photos with storage I control, and the only option left is an export tool that tends to forget some photos, or exclude some metadata.

The removal of that feature certainly wasn't accidental.