More from Phil Askey

[madecov]

All the manufacturers could fund it through CIPA. that way it remains "independant"

 

[davesurrey]

Phil. Can you share any contact information where we might email people like we would a US senator or lobbyist to try to get attention?

If I remember correctly, Phil is in England and isn't likely to have any US political connections.

Actually if you look on his Instagram site he says "Founder of dpreview.com, now travelling and eating around the world with ...."

 

[alphaZ]

I don’t think Amazon even sells moral compasses. I’ve looked.

Question:

What does DPR sell?

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

I am guessing that one reason the site lost a lot of revenues is a lot of bullies look down on cellphones as not real cameras, ( maybe even management) don't think cellphone are real cameras that is why it seldom review cellphones.
But in the real world it is where the money is right now. The Bullies influenced management to not focused on cellphones, killing this site.

An excellent theory, with no problems other than the lack of the bullies you keep referring to.

There are some barriers designed to keep people from pushing products without going through advertising channels, but I can't see how (cough, Innovatronix, cough) that would possibly affect you.

Hahahahaha one thing I won't miss is the bullies who dominate this site with their messianic lectures . And those who disagree and considered stupid. Now with this site gone, they will probably have withdrawal symptoms like a drug they are so addicted , they need to go to rehab.

If someone has a problem with you, it's their problem.

If everyone has a problem with you, it's your problem.

 

[Marty4650]

Thanks Phil. The site was yours to sell, so nobody can quibble with your decision. But complaining and expecting to have a say about its dissolution, after cashing out, rings a bit hollow. Like the Instagram and WhatsApp founders complaining about what Facebook did to the users of their platforms.

The only case I can recall of someone selling something, but retaining the right to make decisions for their sold property was Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

The company was founded in 1978, and the owners sold it to Unilever in 2000, twenty two years later. But when they sold it the founders insisted on the right to control the companies ESG (Environmental, social, and corporate governance) policies, and Unilever agreed.

This became a problem for Unilever when the founders decided that Unilever should stop selling their products in the Israeli occupied portions of the West Bank and Gaza in 2021, resulting in global boycotts against Ben & Jerry's and all the other Unilever products.

Unilever eventually divested themselves of their production and marketing company in Israel by spinning off their business in Israel and selling it to their own distributor there. And that in turn resulted in the founders suing Unilever for breach of contract. And this lawsuit was settled with Unilever once again paying the founders for the right to run all aspects of the company they previously purchased in 2000.

As a result, buying a company without owning the right to fully run it is now being taught in business schools as "something not to do." Corporate lawyers are careful to draft sales agreements that transfer all rights of ownership on the date of sale,

Mr. Askey knows he has no right to tell Amazon what to do with something he sold them sixteen years earlier. He is just voicing his opinion on the matter. Just like the rest of us do.

 

[Phil Askey]

It all has value.

 

[Phil Askey]

DPR probably makes them little money or loses a little money relative to their total income. However, this probably simplifies some group's life and so bye-bye. I see this all the time at the big company for which I work. Negative affects on users/'customers' are rarely considered

obviously I’m not privy to the current financial situation at dpreview but I do know that it was more than healthy when I left and with a little work I’m sure could do well again. As someone else said dpreview is low hanging fruit for the numbers guys at Amazon.

let’s stay positive, it’s April 12.

.

--
Phil Askey
Founder, dpreview.com
(Opinions are my own, not working at dpreview anymore)

 

[Phil Askey]

All the manufacturers could fund it through CIPA. that way it remains "independant"

 

[Marty4650]

...and it probably won't be the last.

All those camera magazines stopped publishing too. Most brick and mortar camera stores have closed, and CIPA has lost 93% of their shipping problem.

And none of this had anything to do with Amazon mismanaging this website, or "bullies on DPR forums."It had everything to do with digital cameras going from a mass market item to a very niche market, due to product maturity, market saturation, and smartphones that served the needs of a lot of people who previously were camera customers.

We probably should be thanking Amazon for keeping this website going for 16 years, which was probably ten years longer than their accountants wanted.

Amazon didn't cause the market to change, they just reacted to it like any business would.

 

[bridge77]

...and it probably won't be the last.

All those camera magazines stopped publishing too. Most brick and mortar camera stores have closed, and CIPA has lost 93% of their shipping problem.

And none of this had anything to do with Amazon mismanaging this website, or "bullies on DPR forums."It had everything to do with digital cameras going from a mass market item to a very niche market, due to product maturity, market saturation, and smartphones that served the needs of a lot of people who previously were camera customers.

We probably should be thanking Amazon for keeping this website going for 16 years, which was probably ten years longer than their accountants wanted.

Amazon didn't cause the market to change, they just reacted to it like any business would.

very insightful.

if amazon started supporting every good venture out there, then they would have to start printing their own money. only one place that can do that.

 

[Mark Ransom]

It all has value.

To you and me, absolutely agreed. But to the decision makers deciding how to "archive" the site? I have my doubts.

 

[Pete Stavrakoglou]

1. Phil Askey wrote:

DPR probably makes them little money or loses a little money relative to their total income. However, this probably simplifies some group's life and so bye-bye. I see this all the time at the big company for which I work. Negative affects on users/'customers' are rarely considered

obviously I’m not privy to the current financial situation at dpreview but I do know that it was more than healthy when I left and with a little work I’m sure could do well again. As someone else said dpreview is low hanging fruit for the numbers guys at Amazon.

let’s stay positive, it’s April 12.

.

 

[JoeBryanFFC]

If looked through via an affiliate/digital marketing hence ROI prism then there was a lot dpreview could have done.

Probably every week of the past few years, by far the best selling cameras on Amazon are entry level DSLRs, the canon 4000D and 2000D here in the UK.

I've checked US and other amazon sites too - similar story.

Yet browsing dpreview, especially editorial articles, you wouldn't even know such cameras exist.

Even going down a notch, next best sellers on Amazon - Sony A6000 range - again largely absent from conversations here since this site promotes the latest and greatest.

Fulfilling the demands of blog-togrophers (people who don't actually buy anything or use anything but just talk about gear) won't get you that far. Massive amounts of coverage about the Canon R5 and overheating debates, or the fps rates of the A1 and Z9, or how 6K looks on the X-H2 or whatever the hell else - there are hundreds of examples - won't generate amazon anything.

Amazon I highly doubt even stocks any of these aforementioned cameras here in the UK / Europe (I've just checked now and they actually don't haha!)

 

[felix from the suburbs]

Good point about the camera magazines. I can recall at time when I read both Popular Photography and Modern Photography and how each issue had at least a dozen pages of B&H Photo ads. Sometimes I wondered whether it was all the ads or the readers that kept the magazines going.

 

[OpticsEngineer]

i believe the typical magazine got 80 percent revenue from ads and 20 percent from subscriptions. I am not sure we’re I learned that but it probably was a business magazine like Forbes or Wall Street Journal.

 

[third son]

1. In 2007 dpreview was at a tipping point where I could no longer run it single handed

2. Amazon wasn't the only offer back then

3. They had an excellent reputation for not just maintaining but improving independent businesses transparently

4. Amazon invested heavily in the site, the team and equipment

5. In the last 16 years dpreview has been in their ownership it has grown and flourished, it's significantly bigger and better than it was in 2007

I have no regrets of my decision back then, if I had tried to continue alone I suspect the site would have had to close a long time ago. I truly hope now that something will happen in order to at least maintain the site content.

 

[GossCTP]

i believe the typical magazine got 80 percent revenue from ads and 20 percent from subscriptions. I am not sure we’re I learned that but it probably was a business magazine like Forbes or Wall Street Journal.

When i worked for a newspaper, they said the subscriptions didn't cover the paper costs. The funny thing about that is that the internet should have been their friend as there are no paper costs. It lead me to think that newspaper advertising was largely a suckers game, and the reason it didn't translate to online was the more transparent reporting metrics.

 

[Mark Ransom]

i believe the typical magazine got 80 percent revenue from ads and 20 percent from subscriptions. I am not sure we’re I learned that but it probably was a business magazine like Forbes or Wall Street Journal.

Absolutely. And since advertising revenue was correlated with readership, they'd give the magazines away if they were allowed to.

 

[Joseph S Wisniewski]

Good point about the camera magazines. I can recall at time when I read both Popular Photography and Modern Photography and how each issue had at least a dozen pages of B&H Photo ads. Sometimes I wondered whether it was all the ads or the readers that kept the magazines going.

Do you remember Shutterbug? People literally paid for a "magazine" that was a collection of ads.

 

[felix from the suburbs]

I heard about Shutterbug, but never actually came across a copy. Perhaps it wasn't sold in Canada where I live.