Now it is a surprise - DPReview is closing

[hoodlum]

1 hour ago, Fairkid said:

I wholeheartedly agree. Google used to have a specific button to just show forum results and I was gutted when they removed it.

I use the site filter when I want to see google search results for a specific site.  The below google search provides all dpreview forum results that contain Andrew and eoshd.  😉

"andrew eoshd site:*.dpreview.com/forums"

[Andrew Reid]

Nice, didn't realise you could narrow Google down to certain URLs within a domain like that. Very useful to know

👏 👏  👏 

[newfoundmass]

15 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

He backs his humour up with proper real world information that's why, he shows the differences, he uses the gear, he actually shoots even if its squirrels!

It's not that he doesn't provide information, because I actually think the way he uses cameras is actually really informative because it gives a totally different perspective from how the "pros" use them. A lot can be learned from observing people that are also learning. But I've seen him used as a source for things that Kasey himself openly admits he doesn't know anything about.

[newfoundmass]

I'm curious if this is doable should the site really "die"... does anyone remember Geocities, the free web hosting company? There was an effort to basically crawl every Geocities site possible and preserve it, because of all the data that would be lost once Yahoo deleted all the sites. 

Those sites are still available years on at https://www.oocities.org/ and https://www.geocities.ws/

To be clear, they are incomplete archives because it relied on the same crawling tactics that Google and Yahoo use, and if a site wasn't linked elsewhere it likely would fall through the cracks.

But with DPReview I think that would be less of an issue. The primary issue would be hosting all that data, as while it might not cost a lot for Amazon it probably would cost a bit for a normal person. There also then would be the issue of whether Amazon would object and take legal action. Perhaps reaching out to the Internet Archive to see if they could take this project on with some volunteers might be worth doing?

Just an idea that I haven't seen discussed really yet. It would at least preserve and make all that data available.

[BTM_Pix]

14 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

Perhaps reaching out to the Internet Archive to see if they could take this project on with some volunteers might be worth doing?

Archive Team appear to be on the case.

There are some other individual efforts to preserve the studio shot comparison content too apparently.

https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview

[John Matthews]

Petapixel has got to be one of the most product-pushy websites in the photography world. I reckon they push a new product every 2 or 3 posts. The site is unusable without an adblocker (although that might have changed... I use an adblocker). Am I the only one who finds that Chris and Jordan going to Petapixel quite a strange choice if they were hoping for any degree of non-bias in their reviews? Also, the user-base (in the comments) seems so toxic. Petapixel is just a blog after all or maybe they're changing?

[MrSMW]

39 minutes ago, John Matthews said:

Am I the only one who finds that Chris and Jordan going to Petapixel quite a strange choice if they were hoping for any degree of non-bias in their reviews?

I suspect they are simply going where there is another regular presenting income without having to really do any marketing themselves.

Nothing wrong with that and we all have bills to pay and being a self-employed creator has as many risks as it does potential rewards.

I get the impression they have gone from one regular paid position to another as one door closes and another opens.

 

[newfoundmass]

54 minutes ago, MrSMW said:

I suspect they are simply going where there is another regular presenting income without having to really do any marketing themselves.

Nothing wrong with that and we all have bills to pay and being a self-employed creator has as many risks as it does potential rewards.

I get the impression they have gone from one regular paid position to another as one door closes and another opens.

 

Yeah. If they were 20 somethings that weren't married with kids they might've gone a different direction, but they're older guys with wives and kids so they were gonna go with whatever site offered them a steady paycheck while allowing them to continue doing what they do. They can always fall back on doing their own thing eventually if they need to. 

[Marcio Kabke Pinheiro]

@Andrew Reidpost mentioning Stevie's Digicams...my go to site when choosing my first digicam, a Powershot A20.

Some weeks ago I remembered it, went to discover when it ended...was when Stevie himself died. 

Loved DC Resource too, Jeff closed the site to work on DPReview, and left some years ago.

Good times.

[Andrew Reid]

Yeah, I remember DC Resource too.

Steve's Digicams in the early days was right up there with DPReview for prominence and usefulness!

Have we gone forwards or backwards by replacing all these great web resources with social media influencers?

I think we know the answer.

[John Matthews]

8 hours ago, MrSMW said:

I suspect they are simply going where there is another regular presenting income without having to really do any marketing themselves.

Nothing wrong with that and we all have bills to pay and being a self-employed creator has as many risks as it does potential rewards.

I get the impression they have gone from one regular paid position to another as one door closes and another opens.

 

Yep. It's about the money, not the content.

[ND64]

1 hour ago, John Matthews said:

 

The problem with Japanese camera makers is that they don't know how to make money anymore. You want to attract younger customers, you have to support the platforms that encourage them to use dedicated cameras. That's about a combination of knowledge and culture. Its a shame that these days its Apple, the king of parental "auto everything", that advocates manual control for its iphone cinematic mode. The Apple way of "manual" of course. Soon they change the taste of an entire generation to believe 60fps is artistic! Dedicated camera needs its own narrative to survive, and we're losing the narrative. 

[Davide DB]

13 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

I think we know the answer

Backward. Full backward.

Last week I was trying to buy a piece of gear. 

The dozens of reviews on youtube were all identical and by asking for some details it was clear that no one had actually used the item but only reviewed it quickly with the usual disclaimers "I was not paid but company X kindly sent it to me blah blah..."

when I realized they were only selling it in the U.S. I wrote to the manufacturer if there was a European warehouse.

The reply was: go ahead and buy it on Amazon USA then when you receive it do a review with BTS photos and we will refund the extra costs via Paypal.

End of sad story 

[Davide DB]

21 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Backward. Full backward.

Last week I was trying to buy a piece of gear. 

The dozens of reviews on youtube were all identical and by asking for some details it was clear that no one had actually used the item but only reviewed it quickly with the usual disclaimers "I was not paid but company X kindly sent it to me blah blah..."

when I realized they were only selling it in the U.S. I wrote to the manufacturer if there was a European warehouse.

The reply was: go ahead and buy it on Amazon USA then when you receive it do a review with BTS photos and we will refund the extra costs via Paypal.

End of sad story 

We are all adults, this has been the norm for at least 8 years now, and it will get worse and worse.

We used to talk about Web 2.0. Now it seems to me that we have gone backwards. The ease with which anyone can post his or her fart on the Internet certainly has so many positives (this place is proof of that) but it has created countless self-referential webstars looking for their own little corner in the sun. Making a comparison with cooking, the trend is in having more chefs than dineers.

Why should Amazon spend money on employees and IT infrastructure when, with the Ponzi scheme it has created, it is directly the customers who pay for it to get money to them?

[MrSMW]

14 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Why should Amazon spend money on employees and IT infrastructure when, with the Ponzi scheme it has created, it is directly the customers who pay for it to get money to them?

From a purely business perspective, exactly. Their sole function and existence is to make enough profit in order that the owner can one day go to Mars.

Some would say, that couldn’t happen soon enough…

On the other hand, this kind of business practice is not new. It has existed for thousands of years. 

There are of course many more ethical businesses but they tend to be the ‘corner shop’ kind that care about their customers and their customers care about them.

No one loves Amazon, only the ability to obtain stuff at a click of a button next day or even in some places, same day. 

Something like DPR has next to zero chance of long term survival if it is not owned and operated by enthusiasts. Poor leadership is the death of any and all institutions whether it be a government or a business because if the guy at the top does not give a shit, no one else has a chance.

Whether it’s simple mismanagement or plain incompetence, it’s the management who ultimately make or break any business, large or small.

[Andrew Reid]

It just has to be kept to a realistic level of operations. Why does DPReview for example need to be based in Seattle with such expensive real estate and offices, not to mention massively inflated salaries!

It would be better of with an HQ in Manchester or Berlin, and a modest office with 5 or 6 very talented employees.

Also a big cost for DPR is all the custom software engineering that powers the site and forum. That doesn't make much sense, you can use off the shelf solutions that are far better than their custom forum software anyway.

At the end of the day I don't think Amazon gave it much thought. They are cutting very deeply into non-core stuff and lumping things in together. They don't consider it important enough to even sell it. This is all about making 18,000 people redundant and saving money in a recession, after they hired too eagerly during covid.

Those mega bucks profit at the height of human suffering during lockdowns did not go into a bank to be saved for a rainy day at any of these corporations. It's all been spent and a lot of it has gone into the pockets of shareholders!

So they have nothing to get them through a rainy day.

Also rockets are fucking expensive.

[MrSMW]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

It would be better of with an HQ in Manchester or Berlin

I see what you did there 😉

[Kisaha]

One less pointless trip to the stratosphere (barely space!) would run DPR for 4 or 5 lives!

The forum there had a very strong NX presence, I hope we can attract here most of that traffic, even thought there are too many hobbyists and newbies, which I am not sure if they are the right target group for eoshd, still, it is a possibility..

[Andrew Reid]

It might not be the right target group for those uninterested in video here.

Photo Camera Review on the other hand...

https://www.photocamerareview.com

🙂

[IronFilm]

11 hours ago, Davide DB said:

We used to talk about Web 2.0

In a blink of an eye we're going to enter the "Web 4.0" era within a few years, when there is more AI written content on the internet than there is human written content. And you won't be able to tell the difference.