Maybe.

But what does the "Access to photos" permission really do here? It's not like not having that permission would stop Apple from accessing them against your will, as they have access via the OS anyway. And it's clear, that when you open the Apple Photos app, that it will access your photos.

On the other hand, when you open a third party app, it may not have been clear to you that it wants to access your photos, and the company did not have prior access to them.

I still think apps should only be pre-blessed sparingly. For example, the camera app should not have GPS permission by default, as many people probably aren't aware that camera apps use that information.

Tangential but:

"Access to Photos" is a complicated one: Lots of apps only needs this permission when building a custom photo selector. Like Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram do, also Slack.

For every other app, they can use the system's default photo picker and it works without permission.

For example, the "Lunch Receipt Scanner" that my company uses: I'm happy to allow it on my phone, as it saves a lot of time, but I wouldn't want a company app having access to my entire camera roll!!!

I personally also don't like that WhatsApp/Instagram/Facebook/Slack asks for access to the whole album just to display the photo picker, but I'm pretty sure some designer or product manager made a strong case for it internally. (EDIT: Not saying having a case justifies it, I'm more lamenting the situation)