One of my arguments against hereditary monarchy is that it forces the members of that family to live unnaturally. It's almost a recipe for mental illness.
You live much of your life in a goldfish bowl where the wankers in the press dissect your every move. They photograph you endlessly and chase after you if you dare have an interest in a member of the opposite, maybe fucking the relationship if the other person can't cope with the hassle. If you're a woman, they discuss how you dress, what hairstyle you have, the fucking lot. Your life is set out for you. Public boarding school, uni (whether you have the aptitude or not), armed services (whether you have the inclination or not) then a lifetime of cutting ribbons, eating lunches and dinners with assorted boring cunts, making speeches but not being allowed to say anything of significance. If, for example, you think the government are a bunch of corrupt, callous scumbags, you have to keep it to yourself. You have to be a patron of charities whether you give a shit or not. You have to do certain things that are expected of you, whether you can be arsed or not. It's all part of the job, and you better have the right face on too, even if you think what you're attending is a pile of shite.
Ok, it's well-paid. Very well-paid. And you get a lot of deference if you're into that sort of thing. (I'm the sort of person who dislikes being called 'sir' by a waiter, but I know some folk enjoy being toadied to.)
So, Harry opted out. His reward is to be treated by the press as though he's Hitler, while his woman gets slagged off like she's Messalina on steroids. All because he did not conform.
I couldn't cope with any of that shite, so if I'd been born into it I'd have opted out too. I'd just have kept my gob shut though, and quietly sought a life as an academic at Oxford or Cambridge. But you have to have brains to do that, and - well, let's say the RF are not noted as intellectuals.
It's a gilded cage.