Amazon is shutting down DPReview.com after 25 years
March 21, 2023 1:47 PM Subscribe
Amazon will be shutting down DPReview, the trusted and comprehensive camera reviews website, as part of the 18,000 job cuts it announced in January, and right on the heels of an announcement of an additional 9000 layoffs.
According to Ars Technica, Amazon hasn't yet come up with an archival plan" for the site, so it is possible that its archives of thousands of gear reviews will be lost forever.
Founded in 1998, Amazon acquired the site in 2007.
According to Ars Technica, Amazon hasn't yet come up with an archival plan" for the site, so it is possible that its archives of thousands of gear reviews will be lost forever.
Founded in 1998, Amazon acquired the site in 2007.
gah. That site is super useful. :/ Arrrrg. Whyyyy Amazon
posted by bitterkitten at 2:01 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by bitterkitten at 2:01 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
And....cause why, they short on cash?
posted by tiny frying pan at 2:01 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 2:01 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
The video guys are moving to PetaPixel.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:02 PM on March 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 2:02 PM on March 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
Oh man, that's a shame. I will particularly miss the forums, which is a great source of information about more niche cameras and the backbone of the community of users of non-mainstream gear.
posted by St. Oops at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by St. Oops at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
Because they want to control the information about tech to sell you bullshit, this is a hostile takeover
posted by eustatic at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
posted by eustatic at 2:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [25 favorites]
I never knew they were owned by Amazon but I guess that's been the case pretty much the entire time I've been visiting the site. Their reviews always seemed thorough and no-bullshit and yeah the forums were a treasure trove of great information.
As far as archiving the existing site, this is Amazon, they can host the thing indefinitely using AWS at pretty much no cost if they want to, and would probably still make money through ads and affiliate links.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:08 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
As far as archiving the existing site, this is Amazon, they can host the thing indefinitely using AWS at pretty much no cost if they want to, and would probably still make money through ads and affiliate links.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:08 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Wow that really sucks. I depend on their reviews whenever I am in the market for used gear and losing them is going to be a huge blow. :( I had no idea they were Amazon.
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:11 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by mygothlaundry at 2:11 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
They're still mad that we have cameras.
posted by biogeo at 2:11 PM on March 21, 2023 [28 favorites]
posted by biogeo at 2:11 PM on March 21, 2023 [28 favorites]
tiny frying pan: "And....cause why, they short on cash?"
These layoffs have nothing to do with "trimming the fat" or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They're a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders.
posted by signal at 2:14 PM on March 21, 2023 [37 favorites]
These layoffs have nothing to do with "trimming the fat" or correcting the hiring excesses of the lockdown. They're a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders.
posted by signal at 2:14 PM on March 21, 2023 [37 favorites]
So, the Verge article says
I imagine much of it is at the Wayback Machine (haven't checked yet), but I wonder if the amazing ArchiveTeam might be able to help save some of this?
I'm the slightest of hobbyists, but whenever I've bought a new camera, I've relied heavily on DPReview. This is a huge loss.
(And for crying out loud, just leaving the site up in a locked state, for decades, should be completely within the capabilities of AMAZON, which has like a gazillion percent of the world's web serving and storage capacity.)
Thanks for the alert, 1970s Antihero. I'm angry and sad about this, but glad you posted it.
posted by kristi at 2:14 PM on March 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
the DPReview team will continue publishing reviews and other content until April 10th, after which “the site will be locked, with no further updates made.”and the Ars Technica article says
Any photos and text that readers have uploaded to their accounts can be requested and downloaded until April 6, "after which we will not be able to complete the request."So April 6 is your personal date to archive your personal content, and apparently April 10 is the internet community's collective date to try to archive the site's main public content.
I imagine much of it is at the Wayback Machine (haven't checked yet), but I wonder if the amazing ArchiveTeam might be able to help save some of this?
I'm the slightest of hobbyists, but whenever I've bought a new camera, I've relied heavily on DPReview. This is a huge loss.
(And for crying out loud, just leaving the site up in a locked state, for decades, should be completely within the capabilities of AMAZON, which has like a gazillion percent of the world's web serving and storage capacity.)
Thanks for the alert, 1970s Antihero. I'm angry and sad about this, but glad you posted it.
posted by kristi at 2:14 PM on March 21, 2023 [16 favorites]
Because they want to control the information about tech to sell you bullshit, this is a hostile takeover
Amazon took over DPReview in 2007. Did their dastardly plan to suppress its information (and sell a lot of cameras) take fifteen years?
I'm sad to see this site go but it's not hard to see why. Small niche site for a dwindling market, a business that never made sense for Amazon given its scale or its bespoke nature. You lay off the couple of people who know about it and that's the end of the product. RIP. They aren't bothering to keep an archive online because they just don't give a shit.
The Amazon neglected product I'm really worried about is Goodreads. It feels like that site has been hanging on by its fingertips for years now. And not entirely well; they lost my entire account a year ago. If you have reviews and book lists there you care about, download your account data immediately. It's easy.
posted by Nelson at 2:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Amazon took over DPReview in 2007. Did their dastardly plan to suppress its information (and sell a lot of cameras) take fifteen years?
I'm sad to see this site go but it's not hard to see why. Small niche site for a dwindling market, a business that never made sense for Amazon given its scale or its bespoke nature. You lay off the couple of people who know about it and that's the end of the product. RIP. They aren't bothering to keep an archive online because they just don't give a shit.
The Amazon neglected product I'm really worried about is Goodreads. It feels like that site has been hanging on by its fingertips for years now. And not entirely well; they lost my entire account a year ago. If you have reviews and book lists there you care about, download your account data immediately. It's easy.
posted by Nelson at 2:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
I believe Jason Scott @ IA is aware of DPreview's impending demise. So I'm sure something will be afoot.
posted by Jubal Kessler at 2:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Jubal Kessler at 2:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Politics aside, thank you DPReview.com for all the articles and advice you've given me on my camera purchases. The last camera I bought with information gleamed from this site was just a few weeks ago.
posted by alex_skazat at 2:35 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by alex_skazat at 2:35 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
.
posted by solotoro at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by solotoro at 3:00 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
what! it's the #1 place i go to ogle digital cameras i can't justify buying. but honestly it's one of those cornerstone websites that make the web good. what a shame.
posted by dis_integration at 3:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 3:03 PM on March 21, 2023 [8 favorites]
Why is Amazon allowed to own a site like this [facepalm]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:06 PM on March 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 3:06 PM on March 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
They're a project to transfer value from workers, customers and users to shareholders.
On one hand, duh. That's literally what they're designed to do. It's like complaining that the FingerChipper 5000™ took off your fingers after you shoved them in its feed tube. (Or, you know, frog/scorpion. Boring.)
But on the other hand (the one with more fingers left), I think there's a big segment of the educated, professional population that has managed to avoid personally experiencing the Reagan Enshittification directly. They've been dimly aware that things were getting worse, but in about the same way that they might be aware that a hurricane in some distant country had been especially bad. Up until this point, they've been on the winning side of the exploitation relationship: they were far enough up the economic ladder that there was someone else below them whose labor they could exploit, and in doing so keep their standard of living high.
Now it seems all the excess value has been wrung out of the lower and lower-middle classes. Even the most compassionless of mob bosses and dictators know when the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. Eventually the poor bastards just don't have anything left (or might start rioting if they got any less). But the middle class, they've got some nice stuff, still. Real estate. Pensions. The money that was going to go to that big trip after retirement. Gotta grab all that, of course. But then the wealth-extraction apparatus you've built starts to look around, and all it can do is go up. The middle-middle class, people who went to Directional State or GI-Bill U, saw the value of any education investment they might have made (except certain sub-fields of engineering, who were still needed to run the wealth-extraction machine) decrease. And so too the odds of having a house anything like their parents'. But now the machine has started to eat its last batch of maintainers: the tech workers at the big West Coast megaenterprises that basically engineered the economy to suit themselves. Welcome to the suck.
The question at this point really remains: how few people can concentrate all that wealth solely in themselves, before everyone else starts to pointedly object to the arrangement? Including people who up until fairly recently, may have thought they were on the winning side of the deal. Maybe I'm just feeling particularly optimistic tonight, but it feels like we're starting to explore the limits of it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 3:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [51 favorites]
On one hand, duh. That's literally what they're designed to do. It's like complaining that the FingerChipper 5000™ took off your fingers after you shoved them in its feed tube. (Or, you know, frog/scorpion. Boring.)
But on the other hand (the one with more fingers left), I think there's a big segment of the educated, professional population that has managed to avoid personally experiencing the Reagan Enshittification directly. They've been dimly aware that things were getting worse, but in about the same way that they might be aware that a hurricane in some distant country had been especially bad. Up until this point, they've been on the winning side of the exploitation relationship: they were far enough up the economic ladder that there was someone else below them whose labor they could exploit, and in doing so keep their standard of living high.
Now it seems all the excess value has been wrung out of the lower and lower-middle classes. Even the most compassionless of mob bosses and dictators know when the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore. Eventually the poor bastards just don't have anything left (or might start rioting if they got any less). But the middle class, they've got some nice stuff, still. Real estate. Pensions. The money that was going to go to that big trip after retirement. Gotta grab all that, of course. But then the wealth-extraction apparatus you've built starts to look around, and all it can do is go up. The middle-middle class, people who went to Directional State or GI-Bill U, saw the value of any education investment they might have made (except certain sub-fields of engineering, who were still needed to run the wealth-extraction machine) decrease. And so too the odds of having a house anything like their parents'. But now the machine has started to eat its last batch of maintainers: the tech workers at the big West Coast megaenterprises that basically engineered the economy to suit themselves. Welcome to the suck.
The question at this point really remains: how few people can concentrate all that wealth solely in themselves, before everyone else starts to pointedly object to the arrangement? Including people who up until fairly recently, may have thought they were on the winning side of the deal. Maybe I'm just feeling particularly optimistic tonight, but it feels like we're starting to explore the limits of it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 3:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [51 favorites]
You got all of that from a camera review site being shut down? Or did you already have those paragraphs locked and loaded, waiting for a reason to post?
Personally, I'm going for the simplest explanation: the site was acquired by Amazon in the days before streaming was their bread-and-butter and simultaneously their biggest money pit. Back in the day, it actively pursued being the site that sells "everything", so the cost of the site with the expectation of turning into a Consumer Reports for high-end digital was chump change.
But suddenly, everyone and their mother had cameras built into their phones, and if it wasn't the best camera, who cared? It was built into your phone! This site became a hobbyist clique -- honestly, I was in digital video as a semi-professional between 2004-2010 and I literally had never heard of this site prior to today. Perhaps it existed off to the side as the passion project of a small group of staffers, since it's budget was a rounding error in the overall Amazon bucket. Bigger sites in the same field such as Engadget struggle constantly, I know Yahoo laid off a significant fraction of their staff last year.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:44 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Personally, I'm going for the simplest explanation: the site was acquired by Amazon in the days before streaming was their bread-and-butter and simultaneously their biggest money pit. Back in the day, it actively pursued being the site that sells "everything", so the cost of the site with the expectation of turning into a Consumer Reports for high-end digital was chump change.
But suddenly, everyone and their mother had cameras built into their phones, and if it wasn't the best camera, who cared? It was built into your phone! This site became a hobbyist clique -- honestly, I was in digital video as a semi-professional between 2004-2010 and I literally had never heard of this site prior to today. Perhaps it existed off to the side as the passion project of a small group of staffers, since it's budget was a rounding error in the overall Amazon bucket. Bigger sites in the same field such as Engadget struggle constantly, I know Yahoo laid off a significant fraction of their staff last year.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 3:44 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Why is Amazon
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:47 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by Ahmad Khani at 3:47 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
The Amazon neglected product I'm really worried about is Goodreads. It feels like that site has been hanging on by its fingertips for years now.
And then there’s LibraryThing. If GoodReads is hanging by its fingertips, LibraryThing is over the edge of the cliff, clinging to a rickety looking tree branch.
posted by zamboni at 3:54 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
And then there’s LibraryThing. If GoodReads is hanging by its fingertips, LibraryThing is over the edge of the cliff, clinging to a rickety looking tree branch.
posted by zamboni at 3:54 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
I used to visit DPReview.com all the time, mostly during years 2008 - 2016 (in late 2016 I used the site to find a good travel camera with a decent zoom, for an upcoming Europe vacation I had planned that winter. That's the last time I remember going there.). Years later, I've found that my iPhone cameras are now plenty good enough for travel photography. They even have pretty solid telephoto lenses now!
So sadly, the utility of DPReview has gone down for me, and I'm sure many others too. But that doesn't mean it should go away! This really does feel like a kind of enshittification.
posted by Doleful Creature at 4:06 PM on March 21, 2023
So sadly, the utility of DPReview has gone down for me, and I'm sure many others too. But that doesn't mean it should go away! This really does feel like a kind of enshittification.
posted by Doleful Creature at 4:06 PM on March 21, 2023
I believe the ur-enshittification of the modern era happened during the early 1990s when the rec.arts.movies movie database was strip-mined, privatised into IMDB, and then sold to Amazon a bit later. Surprised Amazon hasn't also DC'd it, tbh.
posted by meehawl at 4:09 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by meehawl at 4:09 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
LibraryThing
Hmm. Apparently it’s only 40% owned by AbeBooks (and thus Amazon), so LibraryThing’s spindly branch may be stronger than I thought.
posted by zamboni at 4:10 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hmm. Apparently it’s only 40% owned by AbeBooks (and thus Amazon), so LibraryThing’s spindly branch may be stronger than I thought.
posted by zamboni at 4:10 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
the early 1990s when the rec.arts.movies movie database was strip-mined, privatised into IMDB
It feels significant that IMDB’s seed crystal, the grit at the center of its decidedly lumpy pearl, was a rec.arts.movies post listing actresses with pretty eyes.
posted by zamboni at 4:17 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
It feels significant that IMDB’s seed crystal, the grit at the center of its decidedly lumpy pearl, was a rec.arts.movies post listing actresses with pretty eyes.
posted by zamboni at 4:17 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Some notes from a simpler time, when DPReview was acquired in 2007
2007: DPReview announcement
2007: DPReview announcement
Phil: Today marks an exciting milestone in the history of dpreview.com, everyone here is very much looking forward to being able to do more with Amazon's help. We're aiming to expand our product coverage and deliver new site features for our readers and our daily community. ...2007: MacRumors discussion
"Dpreview.com is by far the most authoritative source anywhere for straight talk about new digital cameras,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in a media release. “We at Amazon.com have been their fans for a long time, and we extend a big welcome to the dpreview.com team.”
I hope things don't start going down the drain from here on in2010: Is Phil Askey really gone from DPreview?
I'd say that Phil is living the dream ... Start a business, grow the business, sell the business, reap the benefits.2018: Retrospective with the founder, Phil Askey
What are you up to these days, post-DPReview?posted by Nelson at 4:22 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
These days I'm likely to be found at the side of a race track somewhere in Europe (mostly Italy) supporting my son's racing career.
I have a good friend there. It's really shitty.
The thing I've come to understand with Amazon is not to ascribe any rationale to any act. The company's management at all levels above teams is so chaotic and self-sabotaging that it's impossible to find accountability or reason. People fail up, they succeed out of a job, millions are invested in boondoggles or withheld from excellence. It's a shark tank and money is blood - they are all biting and thrashing all of the time and everyone hates it but those who are predators at heart.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:24 PM on March 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
The thing I've come to understand with Amazon is not to ascribe any rationale to any act. The company's management at all levels above teams is so chaotic and self-sabotaging that it's impossible to find accountability or reason. People fail up, they succeed out of a job, millions are invested in boondoggles or withheld from excellence. It's a shark tank and money is blood - they are all biting and thrashing all of the time and everyone hates it but those who are predators at heart.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 4:24 PM on March 21, 2023 [10 favorites]
Or did you already have those paragraphs locked and loaded, waiting for a reason to post?
Of course not, that's cheating.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:30 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Of course not, that's cheating.
posted by Kadin2048 at 4:30 PM on March 21, 2023 [7 favorites]
Putting this kind of knowledge trove down a memory-hole should be illegal.
I am so angry.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:45 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am so angry.
posted by Faintdreams at 4:45 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
What were these things called "cameras" that they were reviewing?
posted by fairmettle at 5:15 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by fairmettle at 5:15 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
What were these things called "cameras" that they were reviewing?
I think it's like a tiny house.
posted by grobstein at 5:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think it's like a tiny house.
posted by grobstein at 5:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
the rec.arts.movies movie database was strip-mined, privatised into IMDB, and then sold to Amazon a bit later
Similarly: CDDB's transformation into Gracenote.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
Similarly: CDDB's transformation into Gracenote.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:16 PM on March 21, 2023 [6 favorites]
What were these things called "cameras" that they were reviewing?
I think it's like a tiny house.
That's quite an obscura reference...
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:19 PM on March 21, 2023 [21 favorites]
I think it's like a tiny house.
That's quite an obscura reference...
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:19 PM on March 21, 2023 [21 favorites]
This is incredibly sad. Sure, I don't visit DPReview as much as I used to, but it's still my go-to site for info on photog purchases (new and used). I'd been thinking about replacing my DSLR with a mirrorless. A few weeks ago spent a couple hours on the site, in the reviews and forums. As someone else here mentioned, those forums are just as valuable (if not more so) as the articles. Sure hope the folks at Internet Archive are on top of this.
posted by JonathanB at 5:23 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by JonathanB at 5:23 PM on March 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Any photos and text that readers have uploaded to their accounts can be requested and downloaded until April 6, "after which we will not be able to complete the request."
Two weeks. 25 years worth of content and they're giving folks 2 weeks from the announcement to download their contributions.
Scumbags. That's who does something like that. Pure scumbags. They couldn't give folks a couple of months? Fucking scumbags.
posted by mediareport at 5:32 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Two weeks. 25 years worth of content and they're giving folks 2 weeks from the announcement to download their contributions.
Scumbags. That's who does something like that. Pure scumbags. They couldn't give folks a couple of months? Fucking scumbags.
posted by mediareport at 5:32 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's really unfortunate that the Internet Archive is our only solution for when Caesar burns down a library. We need something better than "let's hope this one non-profit has a copy!"
Personally I've tried to stop contributing significant content to sites that don't let me easily download and archive those contributions. See my notes above about Goodreads export. Here's Metafilter's export, btw. I'm hardly perfect about this but I am trying to get in the habit of downloading archives every few months.
The problem is that a big pile of JSON or CSV (or worse, XML) is not a very useful product. It's a lot of work to convert an archive back into something useful.
posted by Nelson at 5:53 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
Personally I've tried to stop contributing significant content to sites that don't let me easily download and archive those contributions. See my notes above about Goodreads export. Here's Metafilter's export, btw. I'm hardly perfect about this but I am trying to get in the habit of downloading archives every few months.
The problem is that a big pile of JSON or CSV (or worse, XML) is not a very useful product. It's a lot of work to convert an archive back into something useful.
posted by Nelson at 5:53 PM on March 21, 2023 [5 favorites]
Hasn't archive.org archived it anyway?
Archive.org is not a quick panacea; it can be spotty with images from archived sites, in my experience. But Amazon's 2-week turnaround from announcement to deletion is really disgusting; allowing folks to use their accounts to download their work easily for a few months is the bare minimum we should expect. Two weeks is such a "fuck you" to users that the only response back is "fuck you too, scumbags."
posted by mediareport at 6:10 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Archive.org is not a quick panacea; it can be spotty with images from archived sites, in my experience. But Amazon's 2-week turnaround from announcement to deletion is really disgusting; allowing folks to use their accounts to download their work easily for a few months is the bare minimum we should expect. Two weeks is such a "fuck you" to users that the only response back is "fuck you too, scumbags."
posted by mediareport at 6:10 PM on March 21, 2023 [4 favorites]
Archive.org and the Internet Wayback machine is amazing and everything but asking a scrappy little non-profit to attempt to archive and catalog the bulk of the internet as viewed from a given user and location is asking a whole lot.
I don't think that even Amazon AWS or Google/Alphabet has enough storage or bandwidth for that as described, and they already effectively (if temporarily) cache or archive a significant portion of the internet combined.
Anyway this is utter bullshit that Amazon is giving this short of a notice and isn't even attempting to sell off the content or IP at fire sale prices or giving it away for free to someone who wants to take it over.
I know the copyright and IP issue of submissions and content from individuals makes this very complicated, but for Pete's sake, what the fuck.
That site is a digital photography institution that goes way beyond simple camera reviews.
posted by loquacious at 6:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't think that even Amazon AWS or Google/Alphabet has enough storage or bandwidth for that as described, and they already effectively (if temporarily) cache or archive a significant portion of the internet combined.
Anyway this is utter bullshit that Amazon is giving this short of a notice and isn't even attempting to sell off the content or IP at fire sale prices or giving it away for free to someone who wants to take it over.
I know the copyright and IP issue of submissions and content from individuals makes this very complicated, but for Pete's sake, what the fuck.
That site is a digital photography institution that goes way beyond simple camera reviews.
posted by loquacious at 6:21 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
MetaFilter: they are all biting and thrashing all of the time and everyone hates it but those who are predators at heart
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 6:31 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 6:31 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
For folks who think a phone camera's completely replaced other digital cameras:
I carry my phone AND my digital camera with me every day. My Canon Powershot has 30x optical zoom, which is fantastic for the things I photograph most: distant wildlife and architectural details. I like the camera in my phone just fine, but it sure as heck doesn't get me anything like 30x zoom.
The audience may be significantly smaller, but it still matters, as anything we love matters.
DPReview is both a library and a community, and it should remain available to all who built it, and all who would like to visit it.
It is indeed unfair and unwise to expect a non-profit to keep it available, even partially; but to whatever extent they're able to do so, I hope DPReview's supporters will extend their support to the Internet Archive.
posted by kristi at 7:04 PM on March 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
I carry my phone AND my digital camera with me every day. My Canon Powershot has 30x optical zoom, which is fantastic for the things I photograph most: distant wildlife and architectural details. I like the camera in my phone just fine, but it sure as heck doesn't get me anything like 30x zoom.
The audience may be significantly smaller, but it still matters, as anything we love matters.
DPReview is both a library and a community, and it should remain available to all who built it, and all who would like to visit it.
It is indeed unfair and unwise to expect a non-profit to keep it available, even partially; but to whatever extent they're able to do so, I hope DPReview's supporters will extend their support to the Internet Archive.
posted by kristi at 7:04 PM on March 21, 2023 [12 favorites]
What were these things called "cameras" that they were reviewing?
I never spent much time on DPReview but it always makes me think of DAPReview, a site that died out sometime after smartphones killed the market for portable digital audio players (like the ipod and sansa clip). A category of devices that was huge 10-20 years ago but where today the middle's been completely hollowed out, leaving only a few very expensive players and a lot of very cheap, extremely limited ones. As far as I can tell neither end of the spectrum has anything like the features you used to be able to find. (You used to be able to do such cool things with playlists!)
These days if I look at device reviews it's mostly for phones, and on a physical level they're all "this rectangle is completely different than the last rectangle! The corners are slightly more or less rounded!" DAPReview makes me nostalgic for the fun of reading about devices that had a huge amount of variety, both in software and in physical design. And for the pleasure of using them.
Anyway, that's my D(A)PReview derail.
posted by trig at 7:40 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
I never spent much time on DPReview but it always makes me think of DAPReview, a site that died out sometime after smartphones killed the market for portable digital audio players (like the ipod and sansa clip). A category of devices that was huge 10-20 years ago but where today the middle's been completely hollowed out, leaving only a few very expensive players and a lot of very cheap, extremely limited ones. As far as I can tell neither end of the spectrum has anything like the features you used to be able to find. (You used to be able to do such cool things with playlists!)
These days if I look at device reviews it's mostly for phones, and on a physical level they're all "this rectangle is completely different than the last rectangle! The corners are slightly more or less rounded!" DAPReview makes me nostalgic for the fun of reading about devices that had a huge amount of variety, both in software and in physical design. And for the pleasure of using them.
Anyway, that's my D(A)PReview derail.
posted by trig at 7:40 PM on March 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Damn. I used that site to buy my first digital camera, which was a big leap of faith at the time, something like 2003. I agonized over what model to buy for weeks, going between an Olympus (I’d been using them for the simple film camera I’d had for years) and an Ixy. When I finally went to the store, the Olympus’ menu and user interface was unintelligible, even the staff in the camera section couldn’t figure it out. The Ixy was easily ¥10000 more than I wanted to spend, but it was so simple and intuitive, and the reviews of it had been glowing.
I honestly understood maybe half of what I was reading on the site, but it was incredibly useful, and clearly a knowledgeable community passionate about the topic. The kind of thing we’re not allowed anymore, in the era of no nice things.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:56 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I honestly understood maybe half of what I was reading on the site, but it was incredibly useful, and clearly a knowledgeable community passionate about the topic. The kind of thing we’re not allowed anymore, in the era of no nice things.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:56 PM on March 21, 2023 [2 favorites]
I like the articles and technical reference but the forums and comments were not good. I was on a couple of camera forums the blocked DPReview links because following them just ended up putting the reader in the midst of an unpleasant thread. People leaving DPReviews forums generally commented on how comparatively civil the discussions were elsewhere.
Still, sad to see another resource bite the dust. I read Imaging Resource was also struggling. They were likewise pretty good on the technical side of things (I don't believe they had forums so lacked the same 'discourse').
Both sites image comparison tools were super useful too.
posted by phigmov at 1:24 AM on March 22, 2023
Still, sad to see another resource bite the dust. I read Imaging Resource was also struggling. They were likewise pretty good on the technical side of things (I don't believe they had forums so lacked the same 'discourse').
Both sites image comparison tools were super useful too.
posted by phigmov at 1:24 AM on March 22, 2023
Years later, I've found that my iPhone cameras are now plenty good enough for travel photography. They even have pretty solid telephoto lenses now!
I went the other way. For years I was happy with my Pixel's camera, which as smartphone cameras go is a pretty damn solid one. But increasingly, I found I wasn't satisfied with the images I was getting - I wanted pictures that really captured, for me, the essence of what it felt like to have been on a vacation. I wanted good telephoto capability, and low-light shooting that didn't need a ton of software fixing, and background blur that didn't get added by the phone in post but looked like natural focus, and colors that looked beautiful and natural rather than the work of a filter.
I got myself an Olympus, because micro four thirds looked like the cheapest option for a "proper" camera and was still pretty small in terms of form factor, and a good telephoto lens and a couple other multi-use zooms, all on the relative cheap - IE, about double what a new phone would cost for everything - and the pictures I take now satisfy me.
And DPreview was an invaluable aid for me, because like everything else, some cameras and lenses are shitty and not worth the money, and having a huge crowd of people who can explain which and why was massively valuable. I've only been using the site for about a year and I will miss it tremendously - and I think, as digital photography is starting to undergo a minor boom (as the Tiktok generation is discovering that real cameras can do a lot more with imaging than even the best phone can), it will be missed by a lot more people than me.
posted by mightygodking at 7:43 AM on March 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
I went the other way. For years I was happy with my Pixel's camera, which as smartphone cameras go is a pretty damn solid one. But increasingly, I found I wasn't satisfied with the images I was getting - I wanted pictures that really captured, for me, the essence of what it felt like to have been on a vacation. I wanted good telephoto capability, and low-light shooting that didn't need a ton of software fixing, and background blur that didn't get added by the phone in post but looked like natural focus, and colors that looked beautiful and natural rather than the work of a filter.
I got myself an Olympus, because micro four thirds looked like the cheapest option for a "proper" camera and was still pretty small in terms of form factor, and a good telephoto lens and a couple other multi-use zooms, all on the relative cheap - IE, about double what a new phone would cost for everything - and the pictures I take now satisfy me.
And DPreview was an invaluable aid for me, because like everything else, some cameras and lenses are shitty and not worth the money, and having a huge crowd of people who can explain which and why was massively valuable. I've only been using the site for about a year and I will miss it tremendously - and I think, as digital photography is starting to undergo a minor boom (as the Tiktok generation is discovering that real cameras can do a lot more with imaging than even the best phone can), it will be missed by a lot more people than me.
posted by mightygodking at 7:43 AM on March 22, 2023 [5 favorites]
This morning I'm realizing a big part of the problem; DPReview is a community for people, a community that was just demolished by its uncaring landlord.
I only know the site as a place to read reviews. Another Consumer Reports or Wirecutter or something, where articles are published with referral links generating revenue. And a useful one, in its time! But it was hard for me to get too upset that a review of an obsolete dSLR from 2007 was going to disappear.
But folks here have been commenting about the forums, and discussions, and users sharing images and experiences. About the community. That's irreplaceable. Sure you can make a copy of it on Internet Archive and individuals might be able to get a dump of all their own posts (in some awkward dead format). But the live community, that's about to be snuffed out. Maybe it'll move elsewhere, maybe it already sort of had, but it won't be the same.
This fragility seems to be a particular problem to online social groups. In the real world communities can lose their space too; a coffeeshop closes, a church meeting hall stops being available.. But often those people and the community move on somewhere else.
But Internet spaces are so much more heavily mediated and defined by the software product. It's much harder to migrate. Also by the time an online community gets destroyed it's often already sort of faded away on its own; I think DPReview may be like that, but could be wrong.
The shift from Twitter to Mastodon is a rare counterexample of a somewhat-successful migration. At least in my community of affluent Americans who are into tech (with a remarkably vibrant queer and trans sidecar.) It helps that Mastodon is largely a clone of Twitter's product. Right down to us migrating our Twitter social graph over to Mastodon with (admittedly awkward) automated tools.
posted by Nelson at 8:20 AM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
I only know the site as a place to read reviews. Another Consumer Reports or Wirecutter or something, where articles are published with referral links generating revenue. And a useful one, in its time! But it was hard for me to get too upset that a review of an obsolete dSLR from 2007 was going to disappear.
But folks here have been commenting about the forums, and discussions, and users sharing images and experiences. About the community. That's irreplaceable. Sure you can make a copy of it on Internet Archive and individuals might be able to get a dump of all their own posts (in some awkward dead format). But the live community, that's about to be snuffed out. Maybe it'll move elsewhere, maybe it already sort of had, but it won't be the same.
This fragility seems to be a particular problem to online social groups. In the real world communities can lose their space too; a coffeeshop closes, a church meeting hall stops being available.. But often those people and the community move on somewhere else.
But Internet spaces are so much more heavily mediated and defined by the software product. It's much harder to migrate. Also by the time an online community gets destroyed it's often already sort of faded away on its own; I think DPReview may be like that, but could be wrong.
The shift from Twitter to Mastodon is a rare counterexample of a somewhat-successful migration. At least in my community of affluent Americans who are into tech (with a remarkably vibrant queer and trans sidecar.) It helps that Mastodon is largely a clone of Twitter's product. Right down to us migrating our Twitter social graph over to Mastodon with (admittedly awkward) automated tools.
posted by Nelson at 8:20 AM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yes, the best camera is the one you have with you - but a lot of people don't realize that dedicated digital cameras are designed to capture quite closely what you can see, how you saw it when you took the photo.
Digital cameras inside phones, have to do a lot of software image processing and they've been programmed to capture what the manufacturers think the audience wants to see, not what they actually see. All digital cameras use filters, and a fake overlays and colour (and other) over compensations you cannot change in camera.
Sometimes as reported recently they outright LIE and provide the user with a composite picture taken from a template or a composite of templates: Samsung’s Moon photos are fake — but so is a lot of mobile photography
It's why (if you know what to look for) you can tell what brand of phone took a particular photo. They all have a signature look.
Yes non-phone digital photography is currently seen as very niche - but deleting the DPreview repository of knowledge is as someone in another comment thread stated an act of Cultural Vandalism.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:26 AM on March 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
Digital cameras inside phones, have to do a lot of software image processing and they've been programmed to capture what the manufacturers think the audience wants to see, not what they actually see. All digital cameras use filters, and a fake overlays and colour (and other) over compensations you cannot change in camera.
Sometimes as reported recently they outright LIE and provide the user with a composite picture taken from a template or a composite of templates: Samsung’s Moon photos are fake — but so is a lot of mobile photography
It's why (if you know what to look for) you can tell what brand of phone took a particular photo. They all have a signature look.
Yes non-phone digital photography is currently seen as very niche - but deleting the DPreview repository of knowledge is as someone in another comment thread stated an act of Cultural Vandalism.
posted by Faintdreams at 8:26 AM on March 22, 2023 [4 favorites]
I know for sure that Google's camera app offers a RAW image option, and I think other apps do as well.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:04 AM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:04 AM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
DPReview is a community for people, a community that was just demolished by its uncaring landlord.
This is not a solution for all situations, but media fandom dealt with this by founding its own nonprofit and running its own servers. There is actually very little standing in the way of individuals or groups continuing to run their own niche community sites, if there is sufficient interest to provide financial support. Not being dependent on any particular corporate "landlord" was a big part of the motivation for the creation of AO3.
posted by praemunire at 9:54 AM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
This is not a solution for all situations, but media fandom dealt with this by founding its own nonprofit and running its own servers. There is actually very little standing in the way of individuals or groups continuing to run their own niche community sites, if there is sufficient interest to provide financial support. Not being dependent on any particular corporate "landlord" was a big part of the motivation for the creation of AO3.
posted by praemunire at 9:54 AM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Similarly: CDDB's transformation into Gracenote.
Precisely. I know it's difficult for all these new people on the internet -- who came along after the weakening of the ban on commercial traffic on NSFNET, etc, around ~1992, etc -- to imagine something difference, but people were busy building a lot of cool stuff in the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. The first wave of privatization and seizure killed off a lot of that open, centripetal/edge energy. I'm glad it emerged again, kind of, by the early 2000s with things like Wikipedia, etc. But esp since the TelCo Act in 1996, the commercialization and content provider consolidation pressures are kind of baked-in to the system, enabling the emergence and persistence of the huge combines such as (ex-Yahoo), Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc, and their hunger to absorb all competing attention content providers.
posted by meehawl at 3:43 PM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Precisely. I know it's difficult for all these new people on the internet -- who came along after the weakening of the ban on commercial traffic on NSFNET, etc, around ~1992, etc -- to imagine something difference, but people were busy building a lot of cool stuff in the 1980s and early-to-mid 1990s. The first wave of privatization and seizure killed off a lot of that open, centripetal/edge energy. I'm glad it emerged again, kind of, by the early 2000s with things like Wikipedia, etc. But esp since the TelCo Act in 1996, the commercialization and content provider consolidation pressures are kind of baked-in to the system, enabling the emergence and persistence of the huge combines such as (ex-Yahoo), Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc, and their hunger to absorb all competing attention content providers.
posted by meehawl at 3:43 PM on March 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
Archive Team (note: separate from Internet Archive) is apparently on it, discussion on Reddit here, here's what the archive team wiki page says right now
Like I said above, even if all the data is preserved the community still gets wrecked.
posted by Nelson at 4:19 PM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
An ArchiveBot job for the forums was started (job:bx7denyrzxzvf07qnmwndveog). It seems like concurrency of 1 with a delay of 100ms is sufficient to avoid rate limiting. However, this job is unlikely to finish in time because it is downloading a page for every post.That makes it sound like they're not getting any inside help from Amazon.
A Warrior job using Distributed recursive crawls is currently planned for early April.
Like I said above, even if all the data is preserved the community still gets wrecked.
posted by Nelson at 4:19 PM on March 22, 2023 [2 favorites]
Archive Team (note: separate from Internet Archive) is apparently on it, discussion on Reddit here, here's what the archive team wiki page says right now
I came here to mention this in case someone didn't see it.
Does anyone know of a contact address or anyone at Amazon to approach about asking for either more time or direct access to the site files?
I will presume that someone is already trying this but there's a lot of tech/web people here so maybe someone knows a better contact than me trying to yell at Amazon's general public facing contacts.
posted by loquacious at 7:27 PM on March 22, 2023
I came here to mention this in case someone didn't see it.
Does anyone know of a contact address or anyone at Amazon to approach about asking for either more time or direct access to the site files?
I will presume that someone is already trying this but there's a lot of tech/web people here so maybe someone knows a better contact than me trying to yell at Amazon's general public facing contacts.
posted by loquacious at 7:27 PM on March 22, 2023
Petapixel reported on April 7th 2023, that the site seems to now be being archived for perpetual (static?) display online, but that the official notifications about it are.. confusing?
Also nobody seems to know if the YouTube channel videos associated with the site will also remain available.
DPReview Will Remain Available as an Archive After It Closes
posted by Faintdreams at 3:25 PM on April 10, 2023
Also nobody seems to know if the YouTube channel videos associated with the site will also remain available.
DPReview Will Remain Available as an Archive After It Closes
posted by Faintdreams at 3:25 PM on April 10, 2023
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