After 25 years of extraordinarily detailed evaluations of digital cameras and equipment, the irreplaceable DPReview is being shut down by Amazon as the corporate proceeds with a brand new spherical of layoffs.
DPReview was based in 1998 in England, and purchased by Amazon in 2007, which in 2010 relocated the crew to Seattle to be nearer to its headquarters; I’ve met a lot of them through the years as they settled in and round my neighborhood.
The crew’s information, acumen and intensive goal testing contributed to evaluations that famously reached near-comical lengths at occasions, however that was as a result of shortcuts merely weren’t taken: You may ensure that even minor fashions have been getting not only a truthful shake, however the identical remedy a flagship mannequin obtained. Its again catalog of digital camera evaluations and specs is an unbelievable useful resource that I’ve consulted a whole lot of occasions. (I really did a bit of freelance work for them myself 10 years again however since then they’ve merely been my valued media friends.)
This consistency and dedication drew and retained a big and devoted group, one which produced remark threads thousands-strong on evaluations and information gadgets as they quibbled good-naturedly (and testily too, it have to be stated) with one another and the workers over sharpness and equivalency and the deserves of 1 sensor association or one other.
After all cameras themselves have risen and fallen in favor as they’ve vied with smartphones for imaging dominance — and, by way of recognition, misplaced. However whereas far fewer persons are shopping for standalone digital cameras in 2023 than they have been in 2013, or for that matter 2003, the fanatic {and professional} market stays sturdy and the cameras themselves have gotten extremely good. There’s by no means been a greater time to purchase a digital camera — and there has by no means been, nor do I think about there’ll ever be, a greater website that can assist you select one than DPReview.
Someway Amazon by no means actually discovered a solution to capitalize on this one-of-a-kind asset, and DPReview has carried on through the years kind of untouched, to the purpose the place it appears doable its mother or father firm forgot they owned them. It’s onerous to not see the alternatives that current themselves whenever you personal one of many world’s main skilled voices on a serious class, however maybe unsurprisingly, nobody thought to put money into and combine DPReview carefully with Amazon’s different properties. It isn’t the primary time the left hand and proper hand have been incommunicado at that firm.
The crew was laid off in its entirety as a part of the most recent spherical of cuts at Amazon, which like different firms has been tightening its belt — or, maybe additionally like different firms, utilizing the excuse of macroeconomic headwinds to carry out reductions that at some other time would appear useless.
DPReview is hardly the primary media property to get the axe throughout these turbulent occasions, however it’s certainly one of many oldest and most original. Right here’s hoping the gifted and educated crew lands on their ft, and Amazon involves remorse its resolution.
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