As a photographer I'm livid that Amazon bought DPReview just to run it into the ground. That site was a treasure trove of knowledge and it'll be missed.
I will go out of my way to be sure I never purchase a scrap of camera gear on Amazon again.
I will go out of my way to be sure I never purchase a scrap of camera gear on Amazon again.
Amazon ran it for longer (13 years) than it's original owner (12 years). That's not "run it into the ground".
Complaints are more convincing (I don't like dpreview being closed either) when they are reasonable.
There seems to be some companies tailored to photography who may be good candidate buyers, like BHPhotovideo.
A decade of some integrations into Amazon - what effort would it take to remove it?
While its a loss (and it is a great loss), the possibilities for things to go horribly awry if someone else was to buy it... and the "this is hosted for perpetuity but all of the information is half a decade out of date and kind of embarrassing now" is also a real risk.
A transition of ownership comes with some risk and cost for Amazon that is more than the loss of the site to Amazon and a transfer of ownership also has some risks to the community.
But I suppose if you mention the word “goodwill” to Amazon proper, the closest you’ll get it someone seeing if it’s something they sell on the retail side.
I also suspect that when they got done answering the questions, it came out to be "the cost of trying to sell this to a responsible party and make all the changes to the site to remove integrations (using what is likely a demoralized division of the company) is much more than any possible gains or loss of goodwill."
Who would that be, exactly?
Just remember shit like this if you ever get a recruiter contacting you from amazon.
But on the other hand, can’t you? Where is the spirit today of someone like Carnegie, who said I’m going to take all this wealth and build thousands of free public libraries?
Digital imagery in various forms is the predominant art form in this era, this site is a hub for many practitioners of digital imagery. Could Amazon not see it in themselves as one of the richest corporations ever to serve a patron role in the preservation and continued operation of this site? At the cost of a mere pittance in terms of their overall resources.
It’s also surprising to me that Amazon wouldn’t see some level of self interest in that. Fewer people are buying these types of cameras, but more people than ever are consuming the media these types of cameras produce, on Amazon’s platforms, platforms hosted on AWS, and elsewhere.
There is definitely a value to the overall media ecosystem in keeping this resource alive. It might not be a highly quantifiable value, but that doesn’t mean it is a low value, quite the opposite I would think.
As others have said it just seems a bizarre, shortsighted action, that misses the big picture, coming out of the recent economic panic in the tech industry.
I'm really annoyed that philanthropy is so applauded. Yes, it's nice that a robber baron decides to give some money back, even all of it, but it would have been better for the economy if he didn't monopolize it in the first place. The giving back does not make up for the cost.
Microsoft held the computer industry back in a way that was very expensive for many many customers not in the computer industry. Bill Gates shouldn't have done that.
Sometimes this has positive outcomes, but that doesn't change the fact that someone who gained incredible wealth on the backs of others' labour is then using that same wealth to further their own views.
If you're still making large-ticket purchases on Amazon and haven't yet gotten ripped off, you're amazingly lucky. I've been applying this rule since 2017, when I paid full retail for what turned out to be a gray-market (thus not covered by warranty) Nikon 200-500mm.
Not only was it a fake, it was a horrible fake. Cheap fake box and the filter itself… it wasn’t even glass. It was a cheap piece of acrylic in a metal ring. It had no use. It was garbage.
Amazon gave me my money back, but I can’t imagine how fakes this bad get into the pipeline. It’s such a joke.
I got off prime sometimes later, and now need to jump through hurdles and find the small "No thank you I don't want free shipping" link everytime I buy something.
Worse, when searching for an item without a specific brand (eg; the other day I wanted a drip watering system) I end up with whatever made up chinese company won the SEO fight that day. It'll be something like "JIYANG automatic drip watering system BRIGHT DISPLAY BEST WIFI solar with irrigation hose". Then 90% of the reviews will be for a pillow or some unrelated product because amazon allows changing the item to something totally different to farm good reviews. And the actual item will be some plasticky throwaway garbage.