I can’t say I’ve tried uploading files to my database. But if the server is configured to not allow this, then admin can’t/won’t make changes for individual accounts
The file_uploads setting is set to 1 on all servers. This is equivalent to it being set to On. It’s definitely not Off, and file uploads do fully work.
If your website says differently, then either:
Something went wrong with the configuration on the server you’re on resulting in file_uploads not being enabled (not likely, but possible).
Your website checking only whether the setting is On, and assuming that every value means it’s off. But then that’s a bug in your website, because other settings than On can be used to enable a feature in PHP configuration.
If you want to test it, you can setup a file on your website with a little bit of testing code like this: