More people are taking more photos than ever before and not using what we would consider to be a traditional camera: the smartphone. This site was focused on the traditional camera and not the smartphone. History may judge the DSLR and its mirrorless offshoot as merely part of the transition from film to digital with some key niches.
There are a number of comments regarding the importance of this site, and these appear to be mostly grounded in the events of five or ten years ago. There are very few, if any comments, about what this site would be about in five or ten years. Therein lies the problem. What is the point of this site?
People write below of the wealth of knowledge and information contained on this site that will be lost. You know the advice about what to do when the mirror on the camera jams?
This site has had a magnificent run. Members such as I come and learn and socialize. I compared it to a pub where patrons are not charged for drinks. Last call.
"There are very few, if any comments, about what this site would be about in five or ten years. Therein lies the problem. What is the point of this site?" Why don't you gaze into that crystal ball of yours and tell us. (I call it moot corporate.)
That is a very interesting point about how the DSLR/mirrorless era will be viewed from the lens of history.
Looking back 50 or 100 years from now, the DSLR/mirrorless era may seem like a blip, a transitory style of camera, a way to package a digital image sensor in the form factor of essentially what was available in the film era, to the more common form of the smartphone and who knows what else will come after that.
Oh, that was a schock. Thanks for this great community. It was for more then 20 years my reference if I needed photography equipment related information. There is so much valuable information on here regarding photography it realy hurts me to know it will be gone. I hope Archive will have it stored. I will miss you greatly DPR staff!
Just saw a video about this on dpreview tv. Such sad news. If Amazon could at least keep the content up in read only mode for a year? So much great content will just disappear otherwise.
Some years ago the management of Porsche tried to aquire Volkswagen. But after a few months the situation changed completely and in the end Volkswagen has aquired Porsche. True story! Just imagine we would read this news in a few months from now:
Seatle, USA: the management of Dprview is proud to announce that they have aquired Amazn.com. According to the annual plan review of the parent company Dprview the website Amazn.com will close soon because it offers hardly any photographic value. It will remain available in read only mode for a while and then be deleted for good.
This is really sad news, I hope there is a way to save the reviews, after I get my photos back I am heading over to PetaPixel to Chris and Jordan's new home, not the same as dpreview depth and incredible forums. To the staff thank you and to Amazon hopefully some solution can be found if not thanks for supporting the site for an extended time
Who would take it? Whomever would take it would, even if given for free, would still need to absorb the server costs and the other considerable costs in running a site like this. If they intended to keep it going with new content, then they would still need to pay the employees, keep the offices open, etc. It's not trivial in terms of cost or work.
Wondering whether the DPR's team or someone else had offered to buy it out, instead of just letting Amazon kill it. The DPR team could do a fundraising.
So sad, and disappointing on the part of Amazon, given their purchase years ago. DPR will be missed but I hope some of the folks can band together and maintain a presence...
Hey Amazon. How about this? Keep DP Review going ... but make access conditional on Prime membership. Try it for six months and see what happens. Maybe enough of us will join (and buy more stuff) to make it worth your while. Wouldn't it be a good idea to monetize the knowledge on this site ... rather than just abandon it (and us)? Call it an experiment. You could even tell the marketing department to label it a Test Shot. Heck, take it to an MBA program and see if a bunch of students can make it work and turn it all into a reality show for Amazon Prime viewers. But look past the running costs of this site and focus instead on the opportunities. Maybe you are missing the (another pun coming) big picture here?
I’ve a been a loyal customer of Amazon, spending thousands every year. Because I strongly disapproved of the way that you are handling the disbanding and decommissioning of this site and community resource, I pledge to reduce my annual spend with Amazon, even if a product will take longer to arrive or cost me slightly more for a product. Amazon exists only because of the internet, yet Amazon is willing to drown an internet resource and community without an apparent concern for how that affects others. I can understand the corporate need to layoff staff for budgetary reasons, but to simply terminate and dismantle this resource without an effort to find it a new home demonstrates the poor ethics of Amazon corporate management and highlights the executive greed at hand.
Originally I had used Jeff's DCResource site, and came over to frequent dpreview after he came here.
I want to say thank you to all the staff here who made this site a wonderful community resource. You all are great, and provided real value and enjoyment to the community. I have been through layoffs previously, and know it's a crummy situation - so wishing you all the best through this... eventually it will be in the rear view mirror, and something good may even come of it.
I will type a separate comment to AMAZON MANAGEMENT.
Já que a Amazon não quer, sera que a B&H não se interessa em participar? Since Amazon doesn't want to, could it be that B&H isn't interested in participating?
As an amateur photographer, all my motivation was found on this site, here I learned a lot about the evolution of technology in photography and all my decisions to acquire photographic equipment were based on the information on this site. I am appalled by this.
Obviously profit motives are at play. They were very likely in play in the decision to sell DPR to Amazon 16 years ago. They are at play now as Amazon analyzes the return they get from sponsoring the site. I have certainly contributed to the demise, as in my 13 years of membership I have not purchased a single lens, body, flash, filter, battery, etc from Amazon while accessing the site content almost every day. Perhaps a subscription model could be offered, but I suspect most of us would be gone.
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