Disclaimer: lead developer on OpenPhoto providing some clarification.
That's sort of the point though. $2/month is cheap but the actual cost is the 4 years you probably spent uploading and tagging photos only to have the service die.
Your options are continue using a service you don't like for a great price or start using something else and leave behind the 4 years of organization (which you need with 8,000 photos).
It's kinda like the free hit crack dealers give out. In the end it's not worth it. Trust me, I've been there in a previous life.
That being said, Amazon S3 isn't required. You can install it yourself and point it to your NAS.
And btw, I've been thinking about building something like OpenPhoto myself because I also don't like the lockin and I'm really glad that you've seen this need and did something about it.
That's sort of the point though. $2/month is cheap but the actual cost is the 4 years you probably spent uploading and tagging photos only to have the service die.
Your options are continue using a service you don't like for a great price or start using something else and leave behind the 4 years of organization (which you need with 8,000 photos).
It's kinda like the free hit crack dealers give out. In the end it's not worth it. Trust me, I've been there in a previous life.
That being said, Amazon S3 isn't required. You can install it yourself and point it to your NAS.