My brand new iPhone 8 camera sucks. Why?

It's not actually BAD bad, but I was expected an awesome camera when I can see the pixels in the photos. It's really disappointing.

It's apple

The iPhone 8 doesn't have anything special for as far as a camera goes. The iPhone X has the "special" upgraded camera.
Regardless phones have a small lens that does not let in as much detail. They also do not have a optical zoom lens which means you will get pixels for a lot of shots compared to a real camera.

The funny thing is if I gave a random person a iPhone 6s and a iPhone 8 they wouldn't be able to tell the difference short of looking up the model and yet the iPhone 8 costs double.

Try taking a picture under great lighting conditions. I bet the result would be much better.

Phones are used to talk to people, and cameras take photos.

I've always believed that this combination would lead to an expensive phone and a lousy camera, and I've yet to be proved wrong.

New vacuum cleaner feature.

You shot the photo in low light and the camera chose grainy high ISO? You shot it at low resolution?
None of the smartphone photos enlarge particularly well on a big screen

A poor craftsman always blames his tools.

Well no one here could say just based on your opinion. The 8 has one of the higher regarded cameras in phones today, up there with the Pixel 2/2 XL, iPhone X, Galaxy S8/9

What do you want for an $18 camera? That's how much the camera module in an iPhone 8 costs. So it's no wonder why you're not happy with the camera's image quality.

Now, if you use the phone to take shots in anything other than bright conditions (e.g. Sunny or overcast during the day), your images will be very muddy with low contrast, bad color, low sharpness and very noisy.

Get yourself a real camera, and you'll be blown away by not only the image quality, but by the massive increase in the types of shots that you can capture that are simply not possible with a phone.

You use this tool to compare image quality of smartphones like the iPhone X ($1,000) to various other smartphones and real cameras.

Well, that's a first… People usually rave about their iPhone 8 camera here. Oh, wait, I KNOW what's wrong… It's not the camera… It's YOU.

Go to a local library and get a "How to…" photography book or a "beginner's Photography" book, read it, learn something about photography basic fundamentals so you'll KNOW what you're doing. THAT is the first problem… YOU don't know what you're doing. One day you'll realize that the best or the most sophisticated and expensive camera isn't gong to help you if you DON't know what you're doing… So, learn the basic fundamentals of photography or don't take snapshots… Isn't that simple? Don't blame the camera; learn to capture better images with what you have, after all, it's only a tool and it is as good/bad as your personal abilities, experiences, knowledge, skills and talents.

The second problem is your little toy camera, with a tiny sensor and tiny, cheap wide angle lens. IF you were to learn the basic fundamentals of photography, you'd also learn why photography aficionados, amateurs and hobbyists use DSLRs and refrain from using cell 'phone toy "cameras" BECAUSE of the toy cameras' inherent limitations.

NOW that you know this, it now depends on what YOU want to do. So, good luck and best wishes.