More little earthquakes at DPR?

No oroblem but I think you are referring to a device's MAC address which yes, is unique to every device.

I wasn't the one who brought up the subtopic of ip addresses, Nigel did.

But either way unless someone can actually see who is using a device at a particular time that is shared between multiple users it is impossible to determine with total accuracy who is using the device at any particular time.

So devices sharing a common ip address, but obviously with unique MAC addresses, or a device shared by multiple users might or might not be used by a single person.

If multiple accounts are created from a given shared device it is impossible to determine with total certainty if the accounts were created by a single person or multiple people unless you could actually see who was using the device when an account was created.

I'll leave it at that.

To pay a sub for any info I would have to really want it. I can get my news from multiple free sources and despise paywalls for news. As you say, if there is the interest I would consider it. As far as DPR goes, I don't read all their reviews / articles and in fact only select the odd one from the email summary I receive. I did read a lot of reviews before buying my first dedicated camera and before upgrading to m43. It wouldn't bother me too much if their reviews / articles went behind a pay wall - there are plenty of other respectable review sites. But it would be a shame for other people researching kit not to be able to access historical reviews. As long as the forums were still accessible - but I don't even read so much there anymore either. I suspect a subscription service really would be a death knell for the site though.

If similar content was not available elsewhere for free and I really needed it then I would consider a "reasonable" subscription fee.

Otherwise definitely not.

What content could they charge a fee for that was not available for free elsewhere on the www?

i would pay here if it was a threaded view 😉 DPR i would pay, the moderation has been relaxed for a while now, but you still get the gang member attitude of some trying to get you banned deliberately by their nanny content posted. but it has be ignored lately.

The problem is that there are several professional sites that do good reviews, not perhaps with the same technical depth, but good enough to understand if a product is for me. I often pick up a lot of good insights from amateur Blogs and such. I think that DPR might get away with charging a subscription, due to the large forum user base. But not having a free option with reduced privileges would be pretty suicidal.

A DPR review has never actually been useful for my choice of gear. For my last problematic purchase. I was really dubious over the quality of the Laowa 15mm shift. I pieced together several reviews to form a consensus. The AP review was probably the most useful. The lens turned out to be much better than I expected.

There are a couple of things DPR has going for it is a large historical database of reviews and a large data base of "calibrated" to back up the reviews. While maybe not perfect, the data base of the lab shots from their studio scene provide samples of targets both jpeg and raw (processed in a consistent manner) to support their analysis. I see DPR as a good starting point for determining the performance of a given camera which can be augmented by other in-depth reviews. The trouble with the blog-a-sphere is there is not consistency nor long historical databased to support conclusions. While DPR would be my first stop if I were seeking information about a camera, PetaPixel would be my second. They are different but both tend to be unbiased in their analysis.

Is that worth a subscription? One cannot read the NYTimes, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or many local news outlets online now for free. Advertising has always been the bread and butter of financing media. Without ads - we would have not had newspapers and other media outlets. Even the worst of the US "yellow journalism rags," the National Enquirer are pushing subscriptions.

It cost money to operate PetaPixel or DPR or DPRevived. DPR and PetaPixel have to raise money to operate. They are not a charity. If one listens to public radio in the US, it is funded at least partially by corporate and individual donations. I get that people don't want to see ads, and ad blockers are getting better. On the other hand - ad blockers cost websites money because it reducing the eyeballs on their ads. Some are going to simply having three levels. One is a minimal access if you insists on using an ad blocker, more access if you turn it off and even more access if you are a subscriber. The Washington Post allows one to look at the front page free and read up to fixe articles a month without a subscription. But to sit down with your iPad at breakfast and read the Post or Times you need a subscription.

Now to DPR, I am not opposed to DPR subscription or membership or whatever you call it. After all it required a lot of money to develop their data based of reviews and studio test. It cost money to maintain and expand those databases. However, how it is done will be important. I'm also not opposed to tastefully done ads. However, the "in your face," pop ups and pop up videos are not only distasteful but also distracting. There is a cat and mouse fight on going between the ad blockers and web designers. Ad blockers are almost hacking S/W, in that they intercept the data coming into the site from advertising servers and block that from appearing. The we web designer put is block for those hacks, then Adguard (or others) will find a work around, then the web designer will find a way to defeat that work around. That also gets a bit disconcerting to have to do weekly updates of Adguard because some of my websites no longer work and will freeze. Having something like Adguard or any other ad blocker can add aggravation just as a VPN can add aggravations as with my VPR, every time I look for something at Home Despot or Lowes, I have to change my location as it uses the location of my VPN server to set the default location.

I expect DPR will go in a similar direction as PetaPixel and most other media outlets that are highly dependent on advertising. It is not a matter in my mind of if but when and how.

Arguing technical matters with the Mod who knows everything

Fair points. Members will need to decide how "valuable" that information is to them.

They are terrible. Senior management (if they are capable of understanding the issue) need to reign in marketing. Those pop ups and auto play videos only turn people away. At one point some of their ads / banners were covering content and there was no way to scroll the content into view. The new owners' marketing methods make me very grateful that add blockers exist. If they want a user base that accepts that sort of marketing I think DPR was a poor acquisition.

Or their website developers need to make the ads less obtrusive and more viewer friendly.

Not hard to do with some consultation and planning.

I use a FireFox extension 'AdblockerPlus' which handles pop ups and auto play videos:

Yes that's been my choice for quite some years. There are many more now that are said to be just as good

I am lucky. For some reason DPR is ad free in my part of the world, without any blocking software.

Maybe there is an EU rule - "thou shall not trash the user experience"...

I don't know if it is directly related, but I have also found that GUI focus falls off of the main page reading posts, so when you press "Q" to reply with quote, for example, nothing happens, until you click on the background first. I never needed to do that before these ad overlays.

It would be far less rude if the pages dedicated an area to the ads that is fixed, before the page is even drawn, so that nothing is jumping around when you start clicking on things, tricking you into clicking on the wrong thing that appears under the cursor while you are clicking.

Hi,

Yep. The bouncing about does become old fairly quickly....

I'm not up for paying them anything. The only draw for me is the Medium Format forum. And that's a combination of gear talk and photos.

We began the transition to here, but the lack of a threaded view was a hindrance. We tend to have several side discussions within just about every thread. And a flat view becomes rather confusing.

And then DPR didn't sign off the air, so we continued on.

Stan

That is very doable.

They can redesign the html layout of each page so that all the ads (pop ups, videos etc) appear in a sidebar or other dedicated area of the Web page.