Additional functionality and expansion of features IS ALWAYS WELCOME even if some users might find it useless. The example you provide is anecdotal. One can easily give example where it can be useful.
For example.
1. I can see myself setting it up such that LR looks for images in a certain folder and automatically imports them in the correct directory format that I like. I can have this new cloud feature from canon forward and download images to that folder that lightroom is constantly looking at. This way whenever I get home from a shoot I will simply connect my camera to my network and upload, and turn on my computer... take a shower, have dinner/lunch, a coffee, whatever. By the time I get to my computer my images are in my library and ready to go.
2. For pros, I can see how they can set it up with the external wifi component to continuously push images to the cloud which forwards those images on the fly to computer that is accessed by those they delivery their images to. Sounds like very very good way to streamline their work flow and not have to even bother remembering to push images though.
3. My iphone's 4G connection is pretty quick. 5G is set to be even faster. I can see working pros invest in a large enough data bundle, tether their phones to their cameras and basically shoot on location with quick backup. Or cloud backup when they take breaks. It isn't about a second memory card, but rather actual backup in case anything happens to the camera.
4. Lets say you are on a once in a life time trip. And you happen to have the R5 or R6, so you have 2 card slots. Even then, you can come to the hotel at the end of the day, connect your camera to the network and have a backup push to the cloud. This way you have an off location end of the day back up. Just like in example 2 a journalist or pro can have images pushed to the cloud, synced with a computer in another country that is accessable by their editor, or colleague. Some people take SSDs with them on trips, back up to it and mail that to themselves as a sort of back up. Again this service can replace that.
As tech advances, if things get faster this can easily improve. I think canon is thinking about the eventual 5G networks that will allow very fast transfer rates. If you think about connection speeds of 10 years ago you might realise that the whole adobe cloud and syncing with LR mobile would be quite slow and thus useless. But at present it is a great thing to have. 2-5 years for now this whole thing might be faster and thus more useful then than now.
Jesus, dude, you don't have to go all "anecdotal" on me. This isn't a scientific research forum, obviously it's only my opinion. Also, I started out by saying I commend them for making advances, as I of course think that new features are, on the whole, good for users. And I also said that "as it stands" it's pretty useless. I'm not talking about how things will be 5-10 years in the future, I'm talking about right now.
Having said that, just for fun, to counter your examples, I would suggest that:
- In situation 1, you would be needlessly slowing and complicating your workflow. To have your camera connect to the cloud, then upload the images, and then have your computer download those images to folder which Lightroom watches and imports from... You could just plug your camera into your computer, initialise the file transfer in LR, and walk away. And as an added bonus, it would be much, much faster.
- In situation 2, it would require faster upload speeds than are currently feasable. Another user here said that it took 90mins to upload 50 raw files. I'm not talking about upload speeds in 5-10 years, I'm talking about now.
- In situation 4, this is only useful if you don't have any access to computer of any kind from which to make the transfer. Although I will agree that if you happen to not have this access, then it would be a very welcome option to be able to initiate it directly from your camera.
As for situation 3, I completely understand and agree that this is not the same as a second card slot, I recognise the benefits of off-site backup. The issue is that, at the present point in time, no working pro would be able to operate within the constraints of the upload speed bottleneck. Upload speeds are almost always significantly slower than download speeds.