The freighter can be perfectly enjoyable assuming you fly on body clock and/or with augmented crew and get good rest in the hotels. The problem is that there are many 2 sector, 2 man WOCL duties, lots of delays affecting rest plans, and daytime sleep in hotels can be quite elusive, especially when the hotel staff has no idea that you aren’t checking out by 10am like everyone else.
As for competing with FedEx/UPS, those two definitely are relevant. Many of our pilots can and have left for those two airlines. Whether they fly overnight packages or general cargo is totally irrelevant. Who fed you that line of BS, STW? You really are dumb if you believe that.
UPS flies many 747Fs, just like CX and puts quite a bit of cargo on our aircraft. They have also sold out the 747-8 line for the next several years. They are definitely coming after CX.