CSAM was pushed on big tech by most governments.
Apple wasn't required to implement any CSAM detection, so why did they do it? Saying it was pushed onto big tech by governments when there is no law demanding it feels apologetic to me.
As things were, Apple was able to serve up peoples images when presented with a warrant.
If they went to end to end encryption for photo libraries they wouldn’t be able to do that. And I can basically guarantee something would happen and there would be claims about how “Apple protects child molesters”. It’s just too juicy, and we saw the ones about Apple protecting terrorists by not unlocking phones.
So I think they tried to come up with a solution. Something that would let them do end to end encryption but be able to show they’re not protecting child pornographers.