I don't think I'm ready to invest in a photo hosting solution again, be it with my time, my money, or my data, without it being open source/self-hostable or at least open core with a community behind it.
Similar sentiment here. I wish this project well, but photo storage is a long-term thing, and I've been bitten too many times (most recently by Apple shutting down Aperture, which left me with big libraries which are very difficult to migrate).
I considered writing my own software and making it open source, but then realized that photo hosting/sharing software with password-protected sharing features will be used by criminals to store/share CSAM. So, if I end up writing my own solution, it will sadly not be shared with anyone.
Incidentally, I think this service will run into a similar problem: end-to-end encryption is great, but if it gets to a certain size, governments will intervene.
Not OP but I have had many cloud photo accounts in the past:
myphotoalbum, Kodak Gallery, photobucket, Flickr and more. Eventually all of them either shut down, or got sold and became unmaintained. Google Photos and Apple's are the only ones that I can trust will still be around in 10 years' time.
Picasa as well, though Google nowadays does a pretty great job at getting all pictures you have on your account together with https://get.google.com/albumarchive/
Pity that once uploaded there's no way to get your data back from Google. API scrambles EXIF location metatada while Takeout, besides being pain to use on an ongoing basis, fails if you store too many files.
That's probably the best once can do other than reverse engineering the protocol used by Google Photos Android app - as that app seems to be able to download files with full exif, unlike official API.
Unfortunately, as mentioned, multiple users report that Takeout does not work once you get past certain size (I have 350GB and it fails every time). It's been failing for years, probably always. Of course Google doesn't care.
I guess if someone was in EU they could try to ask Google for their data under GDPR data portability, face inevitable non-answer and then go to court if they are determined enough.
Google has blocked access to their APIs for migration[1] which IMO contradicts with their stance on data portability[2]. It is hard to assume good intent here.
As the famous saying goes, never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. This is Google we are talking about, they are infamous for their lack of strategic focus and disorganization.
Been duped too many times.