Facebook. If you really don't want others to see your photos you could make a separate Facebook account just for uploading photos. If super high res is something you care about I think Google+ offers slightly better than Facebook. Anything I want super backed up I just upload to Google Drive.
If you're seriously interested in keeping your photos around for a long time (20+ years) you really ought to think about using a more resilient service and having local backups.
Right now my photos are stored in Trovebox into my personal S3 bucket. I have a script that mirrors down to my local NAS (photo file + meta data from API).
My videos are stored in BitCasa's Infinite Drive and a copy is also on my local NAS.
I use dropbox which I am happy with but I'd love more free space. I like that the app has a passcode on it. I also use G+ backup which honestly freaks me out a little bit. I know they upload private but I check quite often to make sure that they are infact private
HDD + time machine + 2x yearly DVD (one stored offsite at sisters). photos are all we have from years of life - friends don't let friends @#$#@ around with back ups.
While I agree with your general approach, I have to slightly disagree with your statement that photos are all we have from our life. For my own part, I'm preferring savouring the moment over taking a picture.
I have experienced lovely moments, being in nature with friends, experiencing a stunning sunset, when the moment was ruined by some who were more occupied taking selfies with "we're so awsome!" faces. I prefer moment and memory over photo.
Then I inherited a couple of albums of photos from my mother when she died (long ago). A lot of pictures of flowers and landscapes none of which is in itself beautiful enough to be of any purpose for me. And a lot of pictures from her friends, most of which I actually do not know or have contact to.
Most of my paper based photos were accidentally ruined by mold in a wet cellar. I was very annoyed when I discovered it, but then I realized that the pictures sat there for years without being looked at anyway. I was forced to let go. And in the end it was okay.
That said, after all, I recommend to everyone what you said: Make f*#@in' backups fer chryslers sake!
My perspective on photos changed after having kids.
I'm doing everything I can to make sure that they will be able to see what their life was like growing up.
I literally feel like an archivist at times. I go through a lot of trouble to document and preserve their life so they have something to look back on.
1) Photos and videos ... I have a local and cloud copy of them all [1].
2) Notes I send via email to addresses currently hosted on GMail but at an email address at my domain (looking for a better solution in terms of ownership on this)
Yes, total agreement that the situation is different with kids. Still I'd recommend to enjoy the moment and then take a picture afterwards. And then go through the pictures with your kids when they are older and able to understand and tell the story. The picture in itself of course has an intrinsic value, but it is the story of the shared moment that counts.
I never understand your first opinion. You can take photos AND enjoy the moment. Your memory is still the same - now you just have an awesome photo as well.
I've personally seen rot from junky DVDs. I'm pretty sure the that the actual data isn't redundantly stored on a DVD. On CDs data is stored better, because you're going to hear the difference if a small block of data is missing vs watching it. Similar evidence has been stated before, and be sure to read the pdf in the last paragraph. [1]
We've been considering an S3+Glacier combination for Trovebox. We're not consumer facing (pricing starts at $29/month[1]) but we're also open source[2].
Currently in the middle of a contract negotiation and if it goes through we'll build out support for seamlessly storing high res photos in Glacier and low res photos in S3.
At the moment we support S3 and Dropbox for storage as well as our own offering (default).
Flickr. The Terabyte space is enough for me (though I do have the Pro version) allows me to get the originals again (I think that's for non-pro users too)...and the API is fairly flexible, though I think that's a consequence of it being somewhat neglected...in any case, it's been straightforward to suck down dozens of GB of photos whenever I feel like it.
Flickr serves as a pretty good place to share things...lots of random viewers come across my photos...its primary benefit is that it is a great interface for cataloguing and further sorting my photos...especially with geotagging.
I've just found out how to link it to Adobe Lightroom, so now even the inconvenience of exporting from Lightroom, then drag-and-drop upload to Flickr has been eliminated.