R.I.P. DPReview.com

DPReview a respected source for camera gear information and much more has announced they will close 4/10/23. This will be a loss to the photo community. 

Hard to add anything (intelligent) to the already many comments I read online.
Following the link to their announcement, I discovered that when they talk about "parent company" the company in question is Amazon. 

https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/21/23650286/amazon-dpreview-camera-site-shutdown-layoffs

14 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Hard to add anything (intelligent) to the already many comments I read online.
Following the link to their announcement, I discovered that when they talk about "parent company" the company in question is Amazon. 

https://www.dpreview.com/news/5901145460/dpreview-com-to-close

Correct. Amazon thought dprreview is a way to drive traffic to their sites however they can do that cheaper just running affiliate schemes from influencers and there must be some significant costs to running a whole website

As somone who had fairly close ties in AMZN when the DPReview acquisition was made (2007) the strategy at the time was camera gear (& accessories) was a category that AMZN thought they could own a big % of overall sales (very similar to what they had done w/books in the beginning). Their third party seller model had launched ~6 years earlier, and they were still looking to garner larger %'s of overall markets (by category) through direct sales.

By most accounts DPReview did well for them in this regard (but now with declining revenue in this category for the last several years).

Personally, I think the overlap between DPReview and PetaPixel (for new editorial content) had become fairly absurd in recent years. It was becoming very clear there wasn't room for two English-language photo gear review sites in the market. DPReview's reviews and test images are historically valuable to the community (it looks like several folks are trying to archive these before the site is "done"), but had much less value to AMZN.

I do not go into the economic merits of the issue but it is clear that, as @Interceptor121 said, the site made sense for Amazon in a golden age of forums. Now it is all about the armies of influencers on social networks.

But what leaves me stunned is the decision to shut down the site within a month. It sucks because 25 years of articles and reviews on digital photography is a huge cultural heritage.

It is even more shameful when you think that Amazon is among the world's largest providers of cloud technology. Leaving a minimal infrastructure for the enjoyment of content as archives costs Amazon less than a cup of coffee.

Just so everyone is aware, DPReview lives and has been acquired by Gear Patrol and will not be shutting down. Hopefully some of those who had left in anticipation of it shutting down find their way back to continue to contribute to a great online community. I find their underwater forum section lacking engagement, which is why I am on here and scubaboard, but there is so much valuable info and experience on there.