It really depends on the population or potential future use-case. I’ve known many labs where cost wasn’t a concern because their institution was associated with

It really depends on the population or potential future use-case. I’ve known many labs where cost wasn’t a concern because their institution was associated with (or had their own) cluster that was under-utilized. I think there’s also something to the fact that the cost of storing sequence pales in comparison to the sample collection, DNA extraction, library prep, and sequencing itself that if you can afford to generate that much sequence then storing it isn’t much of an issue. And if you really wanted to cut costs it’s easy to upload to NCBI rather than deleting it. I also think there’s a certain degree of fear in not being able to generate the data again if you needed to, due to lack of funding or the organism itself not being available.