400 bucks is rough but honestly that's cheap for 3 years of family pics. the thing people get wrong though is thinking there's one "right" answer here. it really comes down to whether you had backups, because if you didn't, you were kinda stuck between paying or losing everything forever. i've seen folks drop 2k on a crypto demand and still get nothing back, so at least yours actually delivered the files. the real lesson is that next time those photos need to live in two places, like an external drive plus a cloud thing. that way nobody gets to hold your memories hostage again.

Damn, did the clamp hold tension the whole time or did you have to keep tightening it?

This is just how we treat everything now, the new thing always looks better until you actually try it. Same reason I keep buying the "improved" version of stuff I already own and liked, then get mad when it sucks. The old one was fine the whole time, we just cant help chasing the shiny box.