Domain names and photo hosting

Today, just for laughs, I looked at the dpreview "discussion" webpages. There's not so much discussion going on as puerile ranting, chest beating and nugatory, gratuitous posting. Mostly the issues raised on dpreview are along the lines of "waah. I just read this (from an unconfirmed or incomplete source) and think its the end of the world" or "how/what/where do I do/buy/get this" where the answer is usually easily available via online searches or better by putting down the damn tablet and heading to the library. Remember libraries? They have books and books have information in them. Better than that even, books don't need batteries so you can keep reading without having to plug them in. Of course, I'm talking about dpreview posters that usually will be found hunched over an elderly computer, surrounded by a sea of burger wrappers, empty coke cans in a foul smelling unventilated room with curtains closed so long that they're sticking to the wall.

Anyway, I digress. One of the posters asked an interesting question, namely what to do for photo hosting and domain names. For some bizarre reason they considered a domain name as a $35 purchase. Really - $35! Are they off their rockers? I've seen domains going for $3.99 and even free. Only a real schmuck would pay more than the minimum for the kind of skanky con trick that domain names represent.

"Hold up", I hear you say. "What do you mean by calling domain names thusly?" Well, in today's world, domain names are irrelevant. Do a web search in a few days for "$%4545454%$" and you'll get right back to this blog entry. Now, imagine - assuming you are not a dpreview "contributor" ergo compus mentus - you can come up with a memorable catch phrase for your photo pages. Something as memorable as "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Wein, Weib und Gessang" would work. Poof! Your need for a domain name has vanished as too has any associated cost.

What about photo hosting? Who in their right mind actually pays to host photos? Actually the cretin that made the posting on dpreview seemed to believe that right-click protection would stop people downloading their photos and wanted it included. It's really rather sad that anybody should be stupid enough to believe anything online cannot be easily copied or easily have copy protection removed. Ebooks are a classic example - they're just zipped html folders. But back to the point - why pay to host photos? Free sites such as Picasa, Flickr, Instagram etc exist. The important thing to realise is that as soon as an image is available online, somebody will copy it and use it. I've seen it done. I've seen really grotty sub VGA images downloaded, printed and used as table decorations at functions.

So, domain names and paid hosting? Don't make me laugh! I've not paid for domain names nor for hosting for years. I don't have to worry about bills nor renewals. Of course an interesting sub issue is that having a paid domain and website does not mean anybody is ever going to visit it! I had a photo website for several years and no matter what I did would attract more than a pitiful number of visitors. I gave up on trying to sell snow to the Eskimos and stopped throwing money away on domain names and websites. Like as not nobody will visit your website so don't throw money at it.

Camera Review websites

In the aftermath of the furore on the camera forum that couldn't bare the truth to be aired, the plethora of camera review sites came to mind. There just seem to be so many! Some are plainly bogus, being owned by camera stores, camera makers and brand fanzines. The rest are just plain suspect.

Given that advertising revenue worldwide across the internet is reducing due to competition and the realization that most internet users either block adverts or don't have the money to buy products, such websites cannot afford to write high quality reviews or articles. Indeed, most content these days is used generated (spelling and grammatical errors unchecked with Android oddities thrown into the mix) on review websites.

In order to increase traffic, many websites add forums for users to discuss things. With wafer thin margins, paid moderators are not used. Instead volunteer moderators are the norm. The problem there is that while forums increase traffic, they don't increase revenue. Putting a forum just attracts the kind of person that spends all their life on internet forums. For proof of that, look at the post counts. 10,000 posts is not unusual for a forum addict. Going further, how much time are they spending, reading forums and responding? How much time is left for gainful employment?

It strikes me that the vast majority of internet users, use the internet because it is cheap entertainment. Indeed, its very popular entertainment given the number of internet centric gadgets that abound. I'm thinking of smartphones, smart watches, tablets etc. Without the internet, they're of less value than the average brick. It's amazing how internet addiction has become the norm. With all this addiction to the internet and widespread internet consumption, advertising budgets have further to go. Hence, revenue for carrying advertisements dwindles.

In the days of magazines, some were almost decent but the vast majority were purely advertising vehicles. Indeed those that still exist are largely advertising vehicles with juvenile articles thrown in in order to perpetuate the falsehood that the buyer is getting a magazine worth reading. Truth be told, the original purpose of a magazine was for something short to read on the toilet that could then be used as toilet paper.

Amidst all this declining revenue, review websites have to supplement their income whether it's from bribes, paid reviews or by selling users details. Thus, the era of the independent review is truly gone.

Another thing to question is, with the thousands of camera review websites out there, is how many have bought the cameras they go on to review and how many get free cameras or camera loans? It just strikes me that they can't all have actually had their hands on the cameras they review. Camera companies can't be dumb enough to loan out cameras to anybody that claims to have a review website? I can imagine it now: "Hey, Leica, gissa S2 for my review website" followed by "psst, mate, wanna by a snapshot camera. Only $5 or two beers and she's yours".

Indeed, I am reminded of a cartoon I saw today. Two people were sitting at a table talking. One commented that his laxative had more Facebook friends than he did. Everything seems to have become internet centric rather than life centric. People are beginning to rely upon these websites and forums for their purchase decisions instead of real life. It's quite scary!