I was a Picasa user for several years and I really liked it, but after Google Photos was announced and I saw the handwriting on the wall and completely switched (with much consternation) to Google Photos and have had a great experience. I uploaded over 17,000 to the Google-free tier and applaud all the automation they have built around auto-panorama-stitching, auto-animations, auto-face-tagging, auto-object, and auto-location. I've found that I share my photos much more now, and I also really enjoy having a single stream for my DLSR and smartphone photos (my workflow is to backup uncompressed DSLR photos then upload to Google.)
Having an "AI" organize, edit and tag my photos frees up a lot of time. Part of the transition is learning to let go of the way I used to manage photos.
I still want the right to take all my stuff with me - but I think Google has done a reasonable job of ensuring that happens.
Picasa served me well, but I've moved on as well.