I think 500mbps is a stretch tbh, even the spec's 480 is still a stretch considering USB protocol overhead. If your device uses the much slower MTP then you've got that overhead on top of the USB protocol too.
That said, in real life this is not much more than 20MB/s. That's more than adequate for internet, but this speed is 2005 laptop hard drive territory. Forget recording in 4k or 8k, because that footage is going to take a while to pull out - airdrop would probably be much faster than using the cable, which is embarassing IMO
Even if the lightning data transfer speed is "good enough", you're still paying big money for a premium device, where the manufacturer made a conscious decision to use tech from over two decades ago... when just adding two more lines to the SoC and switching the connector to something compatible is all it takes to benefit from the much greater transfer speeds now.
...actually meh I don't really care lol, nobody is going to stop Apple from milking their customers regardless of how intuitive their software is.
I think PGP is the only player in town as a general purpose encryption and signing tool TBH... The other alternatives I hear get mentioned are just e2ee messaging apps and platforms