Digital photography site DPReview, owned by Amazon, is closing April 10; people can request downloads of photos or texts they uploaded to the site until April 6
DPReview, easily one of the most beloved publications among photography enthusiasts, will shut down and its content will be deleted.
PetaPixelJaron Schneider
Context & Ripple Effects
DPReview’s wind-down fits a recurring pattern in photography services: Google’s Panoramio shutdown included an export window, while Picturelife offered users a transfer path to SmugMug after it shuttered. The common issue is not only service continuity but preserving user-held material and community knowledge when a platform exits.
Unlike earlier changes to 500px’s marketplace and Creative Commons licensing, this is the removal of a publication and its associated user contributions. That makes the download deadline consequential for both personal archives and material that may not remain available elsewhere.
First-order effects
DPReview users must request copies of uploaded photos and text before the stated deadline or risk losing access when the site’s content is deleted.
Amazon exits ownership of a long-running photography-media property, while readers and contributors lose its active publishing venue and archive.
Second-order effects
Photography communities and competing publications may absorb readers, contributors, and reference demand displaced by DPReview’s closure.
Users who relied on DPReview for hosted material face a migration task; the absence of a named transfer destination puts the burden on individuals rather than a successor platform.
Third-order effects
Repeated shutdowns of photo and media services strengthen the case for portable archives and export tools as a baseline expectation for platforms holding user-created material.
If this pattern continues, specialist digital publications may become less durable repositories of community knowledge, increasing reliance on independent preservation and diversified hosting.
The trend: DPReview is one instance of digital-library migration becoming a core risk for niche communities built on company-owned platforms.
After nearly 25 years of operation, DPReview will be closing in the near future. Please click here for more information: https://www.dpreview.com/... https://twitter.com/...
With close to 2M urls indexed and 14M inbound links, it's closing on 4/10 -> Digital photography site DPReview, owned by Amazon, is closing April 10 Visibility is way down over time, dropping during several broad core updates: https://petapixel.com/... https://twitter.com/...
What a tragic end to a great internet resource, @dpreview, which is being put to rest in its 25th year by its corporate owner, @amazon. It will be sorely missed. Instead, now we will have click bait oriented rumor sites! https://www.dpreview.com/...
This is very sad. When I started reading their reviews I was probably about 24, looking at DSLRs that I can't afford, the age of D70, 350D. That was way before YouTube, way before I met Kai. Even today it's my easiest way to do my research or even fact checking while filming. htt…
25 years is a hell of a run. I'll always be grateful for the time I spent at DPR, I learned so much and worked with some grade-A humans who I'm lucky to now call friends https://www.dpreview.com/...
Goddamit Amazon. @dpreview was the absolute gold standard for basically my whole life for camera reviews. What a complete and total shame. https://www.dpreview.com/...
Aw, that's sad news. They were the biggest & best for cam tests when I got into photography and still are. Can't quite believe it. Half expecting @ChrisNiccolls_ and @thatJordanDrake to pop out of a box on 1st April to say “only joking”, but doesn't seem like it sadly. https://tw…
Unbelievably sad news for the entire photo industry. On a personal note, DPReview has been very nice and supportive to me over the years. I'm proud to call all of them friends. https://www.dpreview.com/...
Amazon has a history of buying affiliates that are making a ton of money, then letting them die a slow death. I'm still grumpy about @goodreads not getting any further development love, and now @dpreview - by far the best photo review site - is going down https://techcrunch.com/.…
DPReview's forums were the first real sense of community I ever felt in the photo world. Very early on, I spent countless hours in the forums sharing images, reading perspectives and engaging in dialogue there. Certainly formative at the start of my journey as a photographer. htt…
Damn. I'm far from a camera expert but @dpreview never steered me wrong when I needed to teach myself something quick. Big loss for the community. https://twitter.com/...
It's bizarre how sudden this is. You are the biggest photography publication on the internet, owned by one of the biggest companies in the world. How do you let it come to this? https://twitter.com/...
One of the most prominent (and longest running) online camera review sites, DP Review, is closing due to Amazon budget cuts (and, no, I didn't know they were owned by Amazon either). Huge loss. https://www.dpreview.com/...