Totally agree and I thought about that example. But cropping is an inevitable part of photography (or painting) and was done in camera or in the darkroom before

Totally agree and I thought about that example. But cropping is an inevitable part of photography (or painting) and was done in camera or in the darkroom before digital tools with identical power and results (albeit, cropping digitally is a lot, lot, lot faster). To push this analogy to its breaking point, cropping digitally is like using a keyboard to write instead of a pen.