Curious also, why can't users have access to everything everywhere for their own files?
Usually the answer is that it creates more problems for more people than it solves. The work involved to add options to allow full access is substantial and could increase the attack surface.
Features that are expensive but only useful to a small portion of the userbase often don't get prioritized.
Users can access almost everything everywhere with file manager apps. On the Play Store, file manager apps are one of the exceptions that are allowed to access all files.