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It’s a bummer, but can you really sell a small company to a tech giant and then be any sort of surprised when this happens? Could Amazon with its giant cloud i

It’s a bummer, but can you really sell a small company to a tech giant and then be any sort of surprised when this happens? Could Amazon with its giant cloud infrastructure keep a cache of this website live forever, as an immeasurably tiny drop in the bucket of their operating costs? Sure. Does Amazon care? No. What Amazon cares about is making money and apparently selling fancy cameras and lenses isn’t doing it anymore.

Kye 4y ago
You could own Amazon stock for less than $5 in 2007. They were not a tech giant at the time. Big, but not giant. A speck next to Microsoft or IBM.
- wlesieutre 4y ago
  Ah that's true, I wasn't thinking of how long ago it was sold. My one good camera lens was bought based on dpreview's coverage, back in 2004. Sad to see it go, but seems reflective of the camera market in general. Phones ate the consumer camera market, and now they're eating the prosumer market too.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  right - and they used that five dollars to effectively end the used book business across the USA, with eyes to be Walmart. Is the world really a better place to live with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls and freeways ? Yes, they are related.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >Is the world really a better place to live with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls and freeways ? It's not "the world", but rather the US. The rest of the world does not have Walmart and freeways like America does. And yes, America really is better with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls, and freeways, because Americans like it that way and it's a democratic society. Americans don't want walkable cities where they can go to shops in-person (perhaps after transiting to them conveniently by subway), and any time this topic comes up on HN, legions of Americans scream about how much they love driving everywhere in their big SUVs and how much they hate walkable cities and cyclists and anyplace that doesn't have acres of free parking. Americans are voting with their votes, dollars, and feet, and getting exactly the society they want.
- re 4y ago
  > You could own Amazon stock for less than $5 in 2007. That ignores the 2022 stock split. The price of AMZN ranged from $38 to $100 in 2007.
  - hgsgm 4y ago
    You are ignoring the split. The split adjusted price was <$5 all year.
- runnerup 4y ago
  What does the instantaneous per stock price have to do with the instantaneous market cap or gross earnings or % market share or % household name recognition of a company? APPL is $162/share. BRK.A is $470,000/share. Which company is more giant?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
duxup 4y ago
The amount of folks like John Carmack and others who play the “leopards are my face” game and also took the money is pretty disappointing. They’re not wrong that it is a shame, but they made their call too…
twblalock 4y ago
It's not even selling fancy cameras. It's reviews of digital cameras that are all either obsolete or about to be. Much of the data is only of historical interest. Amazon is not running a charity or a public library. It's foolish to expect them to run a site like this forever. If the original owners wanted this to be preserved they should have sold it to someone who contractually agreed to preserve it, or donated it to the Internet Archive or something. Besides, the old stuff should all be free from archive.org, right?
- celsoazevedo 4y ago
  The Archive Team is planning to archive the site. It should end up on the Wayback Machine: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview
- ghaff 4y ago
  The Wayback Machine seems to be well-populated with content from the site. (And one suspects Amazon knew that the site was already being preserved in this manner.) e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20230201053243/https://www.dpreview.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201053243/https://www.dprev...
- MDGeist 4y ago
  True that a lot of the content is only of historical value, but wouldn't it potentially be in amazon's interest to keep the site going to keep covering new things that amazon is actively selling? They could have just killed off old content after a certain date.
  - mullingitover 4y ago
    I definitely spent thousands on Amazon after reading reviews on dpreview. The affiliate money alone should’ve been more than enough to keep the site running. After this I am firmly determined never to spend a cent on cameras at Amazon.
octacat 4y ago
Oh, cameras are not that dead yet. And many people said they would order new stuff not from Amazon because of it. Good that there are other shops. Because removal of DPReview pissed off the whole camera community.
whyenot 4y ago
> It’s a bummer, but can you really sell a small company to a tech giant and then be any sort of surprised when this happens? For most of DPReview's life, the site has been owned by Amazon, and at least from the outside, everything looked fine.
anigbrowl 4y ago
apparently selling fancy cameras and lenses isn’t doing it anymore Perhaps they can make more money by not providing consumers with as much educational/historical information. I used to use DPreview regularly when I worked in the movie biz, because you could get information anything from bleeding edge forthcoming products to 50-year old stuff you found on eBay for peanuts and wanted to get functional. Educated hobbyists become discerning. Uninformed enthusiasts make better consumers.

Kye 4y ago

You could own Amazon stock for less than $5 in 2007. They were not a tech giant at the time. Big, but not giant. A speck next to Microsoft or IBM.

wlesieutre 4y ago
Ah that's true, I wasn't thinking of how long ago it was sold. My one good camera lens was bought based on dpreview's coverage, back in 2004. Sad to see it go, but seems reflective of the camera market in general. Phones ate the consumer camera market, and now they're eating the prosumer market too.
mistrial9 4y ago
right - and they used that five dollars to effectively end the used book business across the USA, with eyes to be Walmart. Is the world really a better place to live with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls and freeways ? Yes, they are related.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Is the world really a better place to live with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls and freeways ? It's not "the world", but rather the US. The rest of the world does not have Walmart and freeways like America does. And yes, America really is better with Walmart/Amazon, abandoned shopping malls, and freeways, because Americans like it that way and it's a democratic society. Americans don't want walkable cities where they can go to shops in-person (perhaps after transiting to them conveniently by subway), and any time this topic comes up on HN, legions of Americans scream about how much they love driving everywhere in their big SUVs and how much they hate walkable cities and cyclists and anyplace that doesn't have acres of free parking. Americans are voting with their votes, dollars, and feet, and getting exactly the society they want.
re 4y ago
> You could own Amazon stock for less than $5 in 2007. That ignores the 2022 stock split. The price of AMZN ranged from $38 to $100 in 2007.
- hgsgm 4y ago
  You are ignoring the split. The split adjusted price was <$5 all year.
runnerup 4y ago
What does the instantaneous per stock price have to do with the instantaneous market cap or gross earnings or % market share or % household name recognition of a company? APPL is $162/share. BRK.A is $470,000/share. Which company is more giant?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

duxup 4y ago

The amount of folks like John Carmack and others who play the “leopards are my face” game and also took the money is pretty disappointing. They’re not wrong that it is a shame, but they made their call too…

twblalock 4y ago

It's not even selling fancy cameras. It's reviews of digital cameras that are all either obsolete or about to be. Much of the data is only of historical interest. Amazon is not running a charity or a public library. It's foolish to expect them to run a site like this forever. If the original owners wanted this to be preserved they should have sold it to someone who contractually agreed to preserve it, or donated it to the Internet Archive or something. Besides, the old stuff should all be free from archive.org, right?

celsoazevedo 4y ago
The Archive Team is planning to archive the site. It should end up on the Wayback Machine: https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/DPReview
ghaff 4y ago
The Wayback Machine seems to be well-populated with content from the site. (And one suspects Amazon knew that the site was already being preserved in this manner.) e.g. https://web.archive.org/web/20230201053243/https://www.dpreview.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230201053243/https://www.dprev...
MDGeist 4y ago
True that a lot of the content is only of historical value, but wouldn't it potentially be in amazon's interest to keep the site going to keep covering new things that amazon is actively selling? They could have just killed off old content after a certain date.
- mullingitover 4y ago
  I definitely spent thousands on Amazon after reading reviews on dpreview. The affiliate money alone should’ve been more than enough to keep the site running. After this I am firmly determined never to spend a cent on cameras at Amazon.

octacat 4y ago

Oh, cameras are not that dead yet. And many people said they would order new stuff not from Amazon because of it. Good that there are other shops. Because removal of DPReview pissed off the whole camera community.

whyenot 4y ago

> It’s a bummer, but can you really sell a small company to a tech giant and then be any sort of surprised when this happens? For most of DPReview's life, the site has been owned by Amazon, and at least from the outside, everything looked fine.

anigbrowl 4y ago

apparently selling fancy cameras and lenses isn’t doing it anymore Perhaps they can make more money by not providing consumers with as much educational/historical information. I used to use DPreview regularly when I worked in the movie biz, because you could get information anything from bleeding edge forthcoming products to 50-year old stuff you found on eBay for peanuts and wanted to get functional. Educated hobbyists become discerning. Uninformed enthusiasts make better consumers.