This is a sad story. And unfortunately it’s not an April Fool’s joke. This is the story of how capitalism destroys all that is good…

Some 25 years ago, Phil Askey started a project to introduce digital cameras and accessories to the Internet. The concept was simple: objectivity and thoroughness. He called the site 'Digital Photography Review' or DPReview.com for short. The first digital camera presented there was the Canon PowerShot Pro 70:

A site with such a concept was doomed to success. It quickly became a reference site for anyone who wants to choose the right camere, and not spend their hard-earned money in vain. I don’t even need to tell you how each of my cameras passed the DPReview review first:

Of course, such success could not escape to the eyes of corporate sharks. And in May 2007, Phil Askey sells DPReview.com to Jeff Bezos. Probably no one at that moment expected anything other than progress under the hood of Amazon, one of the few corporations that practically control the Internet. Instead of further progress, on March 21, 2023, we received the following announcement:

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

A standard idiotic disclaimer that should make you gleefully accept the destruction of the reference site, an invaluable camera and optics database, and a collection of digital photography and video technology knowledge that can’t be found anywhere else in one place. Such a decision can be evaluated in just one word: Tragedy!

Amazon announced the reason for the closure: There is no profit from the site. How is it possible? Isn’t it more natural for capitalists to sell the unprofitable part of the business? Unfortunately, corporations are a metastasis of capitalism. They don't even tolerate the possibility that someone who could make a successful site profitable shows how truly incompetent they are. Corporations do not expand by intelligence, development and honesty, but by bribery, threats and force. DPReview is a natural victim of the perverse ideology that nothing that doesn't make a profit must survive.

R.I.P…

Of course, faithful followers will not be left without their favorite characters from the site. For example, you can follow Chris and Jordan on the PetaPixel channel:

Let’s hope that decentralized networks in the future create something even better than this remarkable site, while being safe from corporate destruction…

Update!

After a lot of backlash, Scott Everett, CEO of DPReview.com, finally came out with some moderately good news: The content will remain available as an archive.

I do not believe a word of the megacorporations that Amazon belongs to, but this is at least one piece of good news in this whole disaster.