I use shutterfly to upload pictures and share with others. I have used this site to create books of pictures for family anniversaries and milestone birthdays. They will keep your pictures indefinitely and offer you a website to share your pictures with family.
I upload pictures to my mac computer and back them up with an external drive connected to my mac that runs periodically to make copies of the files on my mac.
My sister in law likes Picasso for organizing the pictures on her computer.
You have a great question because smart phones collect pictures along with digital camers and the pictures emailed to you and the ones you see and want to keep from facebook...
I used to take pictures, print them and put them into albums for each child but with the digital format, its easier to just review what's on the computer to respond to requests for the baby picture etc.
We purchased a scanner to be able to take the oldest family pictures and move them onto computer.
I purchased a memory stick to get a copy of son and daughter-in-law's pictures from their honeymoon directly from their laptop when they returned and gave us slide show from their trip.
I also have many boxes of pictures at my house but I find, over time, that I don't look in them unless I have a special project.
My kids have loved to look at their albums. It is soothing to a cranky kid to say "let's look at your pictures from when you were little..."