You seem to be thinking that the
only possible reason behind Apple not offering that kind of functionality is that they want to make more money by selling iCloud subscriptions (the "Apple is evil" argument).
Obviously Apple wants to make more money, but that's not the
only reason.
If you want the best possible user experience, something that "works like magic", you have to rely on cloud services.
Without iCloud, you'd be saving a handful of dollars a month, but you'd have to manage everything manually, which is not what most Apple users want to do.
Apple's target audience (me included) is made out of people that are willing to spend more to get the most seamless experience possible.
There are several drawbacks and costs associated with offering "multiple options".
- It costs more in terms of development and maintenance.
- It makes the product less intuitive to use for everyone except the users that benefit from the alternative options.
- It makes the product less innovative (can't implement new features if they are incompatible with legacy features).
Companies have to carefully evaluate the costs and benefits of each feature/option against their target market when designing a product.
P2P sync has almost no benefits and a lot of drawbacks for the vast majority of users. Therefore Apple would be totally right about dropping it completely in favour of iCloud sync.
If you prioritize saving a few bucks a month at the expense of doing all the sync manually, then you'd be better served by a Linux machine.
