Why is the camera/photo quality of 2021 Moto G Stylus 5G worse than my 2016 Samsung Galaxy S7?

I just upgraded my Samsung Galaxy S7 (2016) to Moto G Stylus 5G (2021). Moto G Stylus 5G 2021 has 4 cameras advertising a 48MP camera - but to my jaw-dropping surprise, the quality of pictures coming out of this 2021 camera is nearly equivalent, on the worse side than my S7. When I zoom into the pictures (I have made sure conditions are normalized and equivalent for taking the photos for each camera), the S7 images for the same 12MP resolution look sharper and clearer hands down. What good are the additional 3 cameras on Moto G? Where is the rest of the power of this 48MP camera (vs S7's lone 12MP sensor)? What could be the reason for this surprising lack of improvement (more like digression) from the 2016 technology with far fewer sensors? I am completely baffled. Am I missing something fundamental about perhaps limitations posed by the Android OS on the camera systems (I have tried every conceivable camera setting, so that's not an issue)? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.