Just a reminder, services like Google Photos are not a backup.

Want to lose nearly three years of photos?
Use Google Photos and do not keep offline back ups of your photos / Takeout archives.

How? Got your account banned or something?

Is there a limit on the retention period?

Please elaborate on what happened.

@CodeMasterAlex Google has abandoned several of its projects/services before. It’d be pretty bad to be told for example 5 years from now that you have 3 months to D/L all your photos from G Photos since all of a sudden it’s decided that the service will no longer be available. Just a thought.

And there's always the nightmare scenario that google mistakenly bans your account.

You should always have an offline backup. Whether you don't have internet access or if you no longer have access to your account, you should have something that doesn't rely on a cloud backup.