Image via CrunchBase

Google. A bottomless pit of bandwidth and storage space, and quite a few bucks in the bank. Yahoo. Struggling to survive, and resources certainly nowhere near what Google has available. So why is it that Yahoo's Flickr photo hosting service offers unlimited space to users at $25/year, while Google's Picasa caps you at 10GB for $20/year? Something doesn't seem right.

How does Flickr have all that storage space, anyway? Given the way they've been deleting their customers' photos (or treating customers so poorly that they do that themselves), a cynic might figure that this is how they ensure that they never run out of storage for all those pictures.

With several years of this nasty behaviour towards customers, and the very inconsistent way they manage their terms of service, one must wonder why Flickr remains the top photo hosting service. Is it the storage space alone? Is that really enough to prevent a user revolt, and customers moving to competing services instead?

Really, that storage space is about the only thing Flickr has going for it. Other services offer better features, better terms of service, better everything, except for storage cost. (Well, there are some things Picasa doesn't have which Flickr does.) Which begs the question: With Google trying to take over the internet, why haven't they matched (or beat) Flickr's $25/year for unlimited space and pro features, for Picasa?

Google has all the resources they need to provide everything Flickr has to offer through their own paid service, for free. So why do they continue to charge so much more and offer so much less?