Oh, no! I was greeted with bad news when visiting the online photography site that has been my “go to” site for years, Digital Photography Review.
Dear readers,
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview will be closing in the near future. This difficult decision is part of the annual operating plan review that our parent company shared earlier this year.
The site will remain active until April 10, and the editorial team is still working on reviews and looking forward to delivering some of our best-ever content.
Everyone on our staff was a reader and fan of DPReview before working here, and we’re grateful for the communities that formed around the site.
Thank you for your support over the years, and we hope you’ll join us in the coming weeks as we celebrate this journey.
Sincerely,
Scott Everett
General Manager – DPReview.com
DP Review has provided the best in news, reviews of cameras and lenses, buying advice in varied categories, useful and active reader forums, etc. I’ve been a regular reader for many years, but was unaware of the rest of the story, as reported by The Verge.
DPReview has been under Amazon’s wing for a long time — the retail giant acquired the publication and its forums in 2007, though it’s always been a bit confusing as to why it’d want to own a photography review site.
Speaking of the forums, the company’s Tuesday announcement says that you have until April 6th to “request a download of all the photos and text you’ve uploaded to the site.”
DPReview is one of many cuts that Amazon is making. In January, the company’s CEO, Andy Jassy, announced sweeping reductions to help lower costs, and it’s since announced 9,000 additional layoffs. The most recent round will affect workers at Twitch and AWS as well as the company’s advertising and human resources divisions.
Okay, it’s true. A lot of people who used to research and then buy cameras are now relying exclusively on their cell phone cameras, virtually eliminating sales of low cost, general purpose cameras whose sales used to prop up the budgets of major camera manufacturers. With the market shifting to more capable and more expensive cameras aimed at “enthusiasts” and advanced photographers, it has likely meant fewer visitors to sites like DP Review, resulting in lower income, etc., etc.
At this point, I don’t know what sources come the closest to replacing DP Review, but I’ll have to be actively looking!
And to the folks behind DP Review, thank you for everything you’ve done for camera enthusiasts!
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Ironic. A small, niche website that was probably barely getting by (but hanging in there) gets gobbled up by a giant leviathan (Amazon) to steer customers in their direction when it comes to photography product needs, finally gets axed by the leviathan in a company wide layoff/cost cutting measure that isn’t necessarily due to the costs of the original small site. But that’s corporate America these days.
I’ve always found cnet.com to be useful at times though I never bothered to see who owns them now!
Unfortunate. I referenced that website quite a bit when looking at buying digital cameras. Their reviews were very detailed and well written. It’s yet another victim of corporate-type thinking that considers only the bottom line and not its user base.
I LOVED DPR Review. I haven’t looked at it for a couple of years, but it went into so much detail about a specific cameras. It helped me choose my first expensive mirrorless camera and lenses…and a few point and shoots before that. You really got the feeling that they were completely neutral and not trying to sway you to a specific product/brand.
A real loss.