You haven't told us what version of iOS you're using, so that makes it hard to know the details.
You're concerned about organization, but actually, I use the Apple Photos app because it offers one of the best Photos organizing tools available. It may help if you study the app and learn how the organization works. To start, the Library view shows all the pictures in your Library. Deleting a picture from there removes it from everywhere. If a picture disappeared from the Library view, then you'd have a hard time finding it again to put it in an additional album.
You see, in Photos, pictures aren't exactly "in" an album. When you "put a picture into an album," its name is added to a list of pictures from the Library that display together when the album is clicked, kind of like a music playlist, but for pictures. So two albums can both have the same picture name in their lists (like two playlists with the same song,) and that picture will show up when you click either album, but there's only one picture file-- it's just on multiple lists. And when you remove a picture from an album, its name remains in the lists of other albums, and the file still remains in your Library. You don't get fewer pictures in your Library because you remove one from an album; you just get fewer names in the album list.
So albums give a specific view of your pictures. The picture of "Aunt Ethel at the Grand Canyon" can be in the "Aunt Ethel" album with other pictures of Aunt Ethel, and it can also be in the "Grand Canyon" album with pictures of other people at the Grand Canyon. And it can also be in a the "September 2015" album with other things that happened then. Each album is pointing to a single file stored in the Photos Library, so having pictures in multiple albums takes up no more storage space. As you can imagine, this is very powerful in organizing pictures. If you're not organizing pictures by putting them in multiple albums, then you may be missing out on this powerful feature.
I mean, think about your music-- do you really want a song to only be in one playlist? Do you want the song to disappear from your music Library just because you've put it in a playlist? That was the only way possible when songs were on vinyl-- you couldn't have the song without the album. And it made sense when pictures were pieces of paper which could only be in one album book. Since they are digital, pictures and songs can be organized in a more versatile way.
It can be daunting to scan through thousands of albums. But Albums can be organized into Folders. I have folders for all the 2024 albums, for instance. I have a folder for Horse Shows that I have shot. But Folders don't hold loose pictures-- Folders hold albums and other folders. Each picture may be in several albums for a different sort of organization. Libraries used to have card catalogs, and you could browse for books of an Author in one catalog, or browse by subject in another, and so on-- so this is a bit like that.
Perhaps you haven't looked around enough to discover that Photos does offer a Filter in the Library view to offer you a limited selection of pictures. By setting this filter
you can see only pictures that are NOT in an album, for instance.
I don't have much video, but as far as TV shows go, I'm not sure Photos is the best choice for holding those. Photos is very handy for short videos, a few minutes long, but it may not be best for longer forms. I don't do longer movies, so I'm not sure, but I might just save those in the Files app. Others may have a different experience.
I hope this helps in understanding Photos' organization…
