I dunno. Those sites make money by people buying prints, which is a very price-aggressive industry (ie low yields). If the cost of offering all the storage is higher than what they are pulling in on the printing revenue then it isn't all that crazy of a move.

It stinks that they don't have a way to get the pictures out en masse, but I also wouldn't trust a site to hold my stuff without keeping a backup so I guess that one cuts both ways.