works like a charm

I tried the wp-config.php

define('UPLOADS', 'wp-content/example');

trick and, while it did save new uploads to the desired folder, images/thumbs were not available, because in media library the new path was concatenated onto the original path — the new path as shown was wrong anyway (slashes got removed), so it wouldn’t have worked regardless.

I also tried a different plugin to change/hide URLs and protect the wp site from anonymous direct access to files, which means it allowed for changing default paths. That didn’t work, but this simple one does.

Thanks!