How do I stop storing my messages and photos on iCloud?

So I’m very new to this but I understand how corrupt these big corporations are. I have all my photos backed up into 2 usb drives which are both encrypted.

My issue is iCloud. I don’t understand how it really works. Ik it’s basically so you can access all your files from different apple devices but the settings just make no sense.

I have Messages and Photos turned off on my iPhone iCloud because I do not want them in …

icloud privacy