I guess I just don't understand that logic. I also work in a hosting-focused industry. We host large amounts of files for paying customers in a much less sexy industry, but we still revolve around file hosting. As a result, we have a lot of storage space and at times we have a lot of free storage space. What would be the benefit of letting people upload files to our open storage and then download them, as well, entirely for free? Seems like it'd only really "get your name out there", but with a lot more downsides than that.

I operated my site in this manner for nearly 6 years. I enjoyed tinkering on it and got a kick out of the fact that a bunch of people used it.