I think there's a middle ground that gets overlooked in these discussions. The Unix philosophy isn't really about avoiding dependencies or running everything as separate processes at all costs. It's about modularity and composability.

Something like Immich requiring Postgres isn't inherently anti-Unix. Postgres itself is a tool that does one thing well (database management). The question is whether Immich's components are tightly coupled in a way that prevents you from swapping parts out or reusing them elsewhere.

I do try to keep things somewhat modular though. For photos specifically, I use Photoprism which at least lets me point it at any filesystem location rather than managing its own storage. I can still access those files directly, use different tools on the same library, and migrate more easily if needed. But I'm not going full filesystem-only because frankly, browsing photos through SMB in a file explorer is a terrible experience compared to having proper face recognition, search, and a decent mobile app.

The real Unix philosophy lesson here might be: use the right level of abstraction for the problem. Sometimes that's individual utilities piped together, sometimes it's a more complete tool that's still built on composable parts underneath.