Managing digital information today is a horrible mess of silos and big business driven incompatibilities. It often drives people to use PDFs, as there is nothing appropriate. Blame the software/businesses, not the victims/users.
I mostly agree with you. But it only works because users give in. They deserve some of the blame.
Apple has a default share option of “Save to Files” where you can navigate where you want it saved. The default location is definitely application specific though.