FWIW I tried to restore my iPhone backup from my Mac last week, and it totally failed. If I hadn't had iCloud, I'd be SOL.
(This is not a defence of Apple btw - it's unforgivable that they lock down the phone so you can only use their backup feature, and it doesn't actually work).
“One is none, two is one” when it comes to backups. If you have a service like Microsoft 365, OneDrive comes with 1TB of data and can backup photos. You can also use Google and Amazon. There’s even option like Nextcloud and Owncloud for a self hosted solution.
I do have back up of the photos and videos, but the rest of the phone can only be backed up using iCloud or Finder/iTunes on Windows. Both methods are actually impossible to test without a spare phone.
Yes it was. I've kept it in case there is some way to fix/restore it in future, but since I had all the important photos/videos on iCloud, I don't really have a pressing need.
(This is not a defence of Apple btw - it's unforgivable that they lock down the phone so you can only use their backup feature, and it doesn't actually work).