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DPReview.com to close

dpreview.com

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Re: DPReview.com to close

#101

Post by asdff »

acadapter wrote: post #15

Why is so much of the good stuff from the internet disappearing without being replaced?

Sites like these are almost like living fossils. They evolved in a completely different environment than today, and therefore nothing like them can evolve again today. When it first started, DP review was just doing what plenty of other blogs were doing in terms of longform, informationally dense content, because when the founders looked around at similar stuff to compare from that's what they saw, iterated on, and created.

Today, the environment is different. If you want to get an audience on your stuff today, you aren't going to make a dpreview or a kenrockwell.com, because when you look around you don't see that stuff very much. You see seoified crap articles, and information drip fed over 20 mins on youtube with advertising in between. Such is the game today and how it must be played if you are to receive any views at all and get that initial userbase.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#102

Post by gesman »

I'm sure there would be a line-up of good-willing buyer(s) for DPREVIEW.

This is an exceptional portal with second-to-none depth of photo technology coverage.

It feels like something is missing in "we're closing" message. Cost is not the problem these days.

Pending lawsuits?

Blackmail from deep pocket disgruntled vendor?

Re: DPReview.com to close

#103

Post by adrr »

asdff wrote: post #41
giobox wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked. ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victi…

The thing is, there's another boom currently going on. The mirrorless boom, and this site is the gold standard for that one as well. Now there is no home, and its much harder to gleam the differences that are actually meaningful between these many mirrorless cameras (and new dslrs that do get made).

It isn't a boom. It is just a transition from DSRL/video cameras to mirrorless. Market is consolidating around mirrorless for everything from photography to video. Hire a wedding photography and a wedding videographer today, they may have the same equipment.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#104

Post by TheRealPomax »

PreInternet01 wrote: post #14

Dpreview.com died when they got taken over by Amazon. Maybe the forums were worthwhile for a while after that, but the main site sure wasn't. Bigcorps just don't get what makes their acquisition targets tick. And it's not the first time that a niche-expertise site was killed by a conglomerate. I'm still pretty salty about Google strangling Zagat, to mention just one similar case.

Of course they get what makes them tick. But they also don't care what makes them tick, they care about whether they generate (temporary) income. The biggest bigcorps don't even care what the thing itself is about, they just look at "what's the return if we buy it, and if so, what will make us more money: keep running it, dismantle it and use parts of it to improve other parts of our company, or shut it down once the revenue dries up".

Bigcorp operate like ant colonies, and run based on what's best for them. It's literally the defining aspect that separates small business from big business. In the former, people are in control. In the latter, the business is in control.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#105

Post by duffyjp »

johnvanommen wrote: post #71
bradlys wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a "boom" is an overstatement. The camera industry overall is dying and struggling. We're down to something like 10% of camera sales from 2010. There is no boom. There is a transition from DSLR to mirrorless for the few existing dedicated camera photographers out there.

I have a $600 DSLR that I bought at Costco on a whim, fifteen years ago. Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade. Camera phone lenses do alright when it's sunny outside, but DSLRs kill it when it comes to medium and low light.

I have an entry level Nikon paired with their F1.4G 50mm lens. It takes staggeringly good portraits in any conditions.

DPReview was of course my primary source of information when choosing equipment. Sad indeed to see them shutter.

* https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-le...

Re: DPReview.com to close

#106

Post by anonu »

Goes to show nothing lasts forever. Sites like dpreview were great, but probably not monetizing like it did in the earlier days of the web. People get their superficial reviews from Amazon product pages and silly "top 10" sites and don't really care for the indepth analysis.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#107

Post by outofpaper »

It's a real pity that Amazon isn't allowing the team to take the site and continue to manage it. Crazy that in these times it makes more sense to lay off and shut down a site like DPreview.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#108

Post by jillesvangurp »

Sad news. I've never bought a digital camera without first checking that website. Invaluable resource. I've been following their youtube channel as well for a few years as well and they just did an episode on this: : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLikDUacsC8

This does make you wonder if this was the only possible outcome for Amazon or whether they are just too indifferent/lazy to make an effort to sell this to somebody else. I bet there would have been interested parties that could have taken over. It's the kind of bean counter move where the effort of finding out the answer to that question was balanced against the potential benefits (millions?) and disregarded for some reason. I don't buy the notion that this was not salvageable. It's an institute and a great brand with a loyal following. That has got to be worth something.

From the sounds of it, not all is lost, the two people behind the youtube channel sound like they will just continue on their own. They grew the channel to 400K+ subscribers. So that's not nothing. I hope Amazon does the right thing with the content of dpreview.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#109

Post by asdff »

noncoml wrote: post #39
PaulHoule wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After 2 day delivery became 5 day delivery I canceled my Prime. (I get deliveries from Japan faster than I get them from a warehouse in the next state.) I am in the middle of cancelling all my recurring bills from AMZN (Pillpack, AWS) and I recommend that you do the same. I can't wait to hear them say on CNBC that Prime cancellations exceeded additions.

Same here. After 15 years I cancelled it. Also their market is now full of counterfeit and Chinese crap that you can buy cheaper on AliExpress. BHPhotovideo is the place I do most of my electronics shopping these days.

Honestly they need to just get ahead of the fakes and hook their site directly to aliexpress. There are honestly some great xiaomi products that are very cheap, but to get them cheaply I need to order on aliexpress which could be fast, or it could be 4 months with a 100 unit minimum order. On amazon you can also find xiaomi products, but they aren't labelled xiaomi and they end up costing 4x as much as what the same product costs on aliexpress, so I pass on them.

If amazon tore down the wall, I could actually be sure I am ordering a true xiaomi product from them and I could probably get it closer to what it costs on aliexpress. Walmart has this same issue actually, somewhat worse because its easier returning things with amazon since they evidently don't care how or why you are returning things.

Re: DPReview.com to close

#110

Post by visarga »

giobox wrote: post #9
ragona wrote: post #3

Dang, I'm actually surprisingly sad about this. DPReview is _the_ site for extremely detailed analysis of cameras. When I want to buy something I go through their report first, and it's always extremely informative. It feels like this kind of layoff is part of an end of an era. Amazon used to NEVER cancel projects that customers were using. They just straight up Did. Not. Do. It. I once had to get approval from my VP…

I do think times have changed though, DPReviews fortunes arguably have mirrored the fortunes of the ILC (interchangeable lens camera) market. The site (along with flickr.com...) was a daily visit for me 15 years ago at the height of the DSLR boom, but I honestly now can't remember the last time I checked. ILC/DSLR annual sales volume peaked in ~2010 I believe, and has rapidly declined ever since really, another victi…

Hey there, been reading the same page around the same time. The 300D was the last DSLR I bought not because it was bad, but because it was so good. Even 15 years later phones could not compare.
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