Of course cameras themselves have risen and fallen in favor as they have vied with smartphones for imaging dominance — and, in terms of popularity, lost. But while far fewer people are buying standalone digital cameras in 2023 than they were in 2013, or for that matter 2003, the enthusiast and professional market remains strong and the cameras themselves have gotten incredibly good. There’s never been a better time to buy a camera — and there has never been, nor do I imagine there will ever be, a better site to help you choose one than DPReview.
Somehow Amazon never really found a way to capitalize on this one-of-a-kind asset, and DPReview has carried on over the years more or less untouched, to the point where it seems possible its parent company forgot they owned them. It’s hard not to see the opportunities that present themselves when you own one of the world’s leading expert voices on a major category, but perhaps unsurprisingly, no one thought to invest in and integrate DPReview closely with Amazon’s other properties. It isn’t the first time the left hand and right hand have been incommunicado at that company.
The team was laid off in its entirety as part of the latest round of cuts at Amazon, which like other companies has been tightening its belt — or, perhaps also like other companies, using the excuse of macroeconomic headwinds to perform reductions that at any other time would seem needless.
Devin Coldewey
The upside of being a part of a huge conglomerate may be a peculiar form of independence. A small team such as DPReview is a mere rounding error on a balance sheet the size of Amazon, so I doubt any top manager ever bothered to limit their budgets or interfere with their processes. This granted them an economic freedom that they would never have achieved as a standalone company, having to turn a profit and positive cash flow while paying for expensive gadgets and their expert reviewers.
The downside is also rather evident: if nobody in upper management knows or cares about a particular team, it doesn’t get properly integrated into the larger company and, when the going gets tough, it’s trivial to cut that part of the company out, since it doesn’t align with the broader strategy, nor contributes to the bottom line. While Google has been the champion of abandoning projects for years, the economic uncertainty in the tech sector will likely cause more abrupt and painful shutdowns in various companies. I wonder if at Amazon Goodreads will be next…
Personally, I can’t say I considered DPReview as an authoritative source as much as others seem to have. I started to watch their YouTube channel more closely after Chris Niccolls and Jordan Drake moved over from The Camera Store, and I will probably continue to follow their reviews wherever they will post them. This reflects an older remark about how the Internet is flattening distribution; as a public, we can now follow and interact with content creators and various experts directly, without intermediation by newspapers, TV channels, or even websites; the personal brand becomes more valuable than the corporate umbrella, and retains its value even as the individual moves to other companies or platforms.
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