I want to share pictures and videos of my kid growing up but I don't want it to be open to the public. I just want me and my wife to be able to add material and then share with grandparents and friends who would be given a username/password or some other solution that authenticates them.

This content would preferably be available remotely over the internet or downloaded periodically to the allowed viewers computers. The second option most likely means they would have to install a client, which I am not too fond of doing (I would have to ask them to install it, help configure for different platforms, ...)

I'm at the start but I would like software that also allows export of the data (if one day I want to migrate to a different solution).

Folder sharing

• I don't know if Windows folder sharing is reliable, robust and safe enough to share over the internet.
• Dropbox could be a software solution, but it's limited to 2GB and requires receivers to also install and configure software.
• A folder is just a collection of files, so it would be harder to keep them organized with text describing the pictures/video

Email

• I could email the content every now and then but videos are almost always too big to go as attachments
• This would also not provide a history of updates to anyone just recently joining in

Are there other solutions to achieve this?

NOTE: I also thought that software to run a local or remote blog could be an option but we aren't allowed to ask those questions on superuser because one admin doesn't like cloud-computing questions. But if you do think it's the best approach and can suggest a solution, do state it in the answers anyway!