Removing free user data is unfortunate, but understandable that it might eventually come to that.

A monthly subscription to regain access is questionable to me, since it'd mean they are still storing the images. A one-time fee could be justified for the cost of recovering the data from cold storage, but risks incentivizing intentionally luring in users then unexpectedly holding their data as leverage to have them pay up as a business model.

Claiming a user can pay to recover their photos, while not actually having anything to restore, is misrepresentation.

Not only that, but there is a cost for retrieval and transmission especially if you are in cold storage. It's much cheaper to just mark it for deletion than it is to get it back.

If it was just that, I'd be okay-ish with it (even though it started out as a service). But pushing a monthly subscription for a 1-time action? Man.....

It was happy to use it to make profit though...

If they can't, then why did they offer to (or at least give the impression that they were going to)?

Well they did store it for free, they are just holding it hostage. They didn’t say “pay or we’ll delete it”, they said “pay if you want it” and they’ll probably continue to store it for free continuously until you pay.

Well, they didn't according to the article, the storage was empty. But the user discover that only after subscribing.

Well, it sounds like they actually will, with the intent of using it to lure you in as a customer.

I don't think your comment represents the situation very well. They allowed the user to upload the data and they're storing the data regardless, right?