Read it and weep, the ultimate review from [H]ard|OCP

6 Comments

1. 

   Anonymouse on April 5, 2019 at 11:40 pm

   Sad day for tech journalism.
   Sad day for tech journalism. PCPer and [H] were my two favorite sites and both of them got screwed by Intel. I’ll still read PCPer as long as Josh and Jeremy are here, but these independent, specialized sites seem to be a fading vestige of the old decentralized internet.

   However, I would not be surprised to see Kyle leaving Intel and back to independence eventually. While Ryan was always friendly with the hardware companies and careful not to bite the hand that feeds him, Kyle was pretty much the opposite and always a consumer advocate. If Intel uses Kyle to market whatever they tell him to market rather than using him to figure out what customers/enthusiasts actually want, I could see him getting quickly frustrated with the situation.

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   • 

     ItsTheWayTheWorldIsNothingNewThereForSure on April 6, 2019 at 1:36 pm

     All the online “Tech” sites
     All the online “Tech” sites are in the Mindshare Business to some degree, it’s just the nature of the beast.

     But there is GamersNexus and AdoredTV/Others who have more independence via different revenue models, T-shirt/ModMats/Other items as well as patreon/etc. AdoredTV, Bulidzoid, and GN have a YouTube revenue model as do others also.

     But really those folks that take the jobs in the Industry that they once reviewed as Indipendent Reporters is not uncommon even in the Radio, TV, and print media from the time before there even was an Internet.

     AMD got Scott Wasson and Apple got Anand Lal Shimpi, and other original website owners have moved on also for various reasons. And about Thomas Pabst of Tom’s Hardware this article(1) is very interesting.

     It really looks like we have had Monopoly Interests dominating the microprocessor/GPU and PC/Laptop markets for most of that market’s existence(40+ years). So I’d expect that more alternative ways of financing Tech Journalism online are needed. The Little media fish online are indeed being gobbled up by the larger media interests and that’s really bad for consumers.

     This part of that Thomas Pabst article is interesting:

     “Tom Pabst never publicly spoke of his old site after selling it in late 2006. However, after a controversial August 24, 2018 editorial by editor Avram Piltch urging readers to buy the new Nvidia RTX GPU, even though the site had not yet reviewed the hardware independently, Pabst spoke out. Youtube hardware reviewer Steve Burke posted a rebuttal on his channel Gamers Nexus, and Pabst responded on Facebook, emphasizing he no longer has anything to do with the site, that he has two sons, and called the editorial “suicidal” and “epically nonsensical.”

     He noted that buying unproven hardware too early turns you into, in effect, a paid beta tester and that he was scratching his head.

     Pabst didn’t elaborate, but for those familiar with his work, he didn’t need to. After all, the old Tom’s Hardware didn’t endorse hardware sight unseen. That was kind of the point. Extensive testing and tinkering with the product in hand was how Tom’s Hardware Guide discovered the secrets, good and bad, of those original Celerons, the later P3s, and early P4s.

     And Dr. Thomas Pabst can speak of somewhat recent experience. VR hasn’t exactly set the world on fire. In light of that, spending $850 to be the first to have real-time ray tracing does seem a bit premature, just like someone paying $599 for VR in 2015 now seems premature. VR is one of many promising technologies that didn’t catch on as quickly as people expected. The Amiga, the first consumer computer to make ray tracing of any kind practical, is a cautionary tale. In 1985 it looked like it would change the world, and yet, today it’s only a footnote. ” (1)

     So that just shows the damaging affect that media market consolidation is having on the Online Technology Press that is not regulated to the same degree that the old Radio, TV, and Print media where/are regulated.

     (1)

     “Whatever happened to Dr. Thomas Pabst?”

     https://dfarq.homeip.net/whatever-happened-to-dr-thomas-pabst/

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2. 

   Hahayeahright on April 6, 2019 at 12:05 am

   Kyle won’t ever toe anything
   Kyle won’t ever toe anything but the company line. He needs the medical insurance, pay and other benefits that come w/the job. If he is told to tell everyone that the sky is purple, he’ll do it.

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3. 

   WayneJetSki on April 6, 2019 at 4:16 pm

   Sad to be reminded of
   Sad to be reminded of this.

   PcPer and Hardocp has been my two favorite sites that I loved going to.

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   • 

     jimecherry on April 8, 2019 at 6:21 pm

     Pcper seems mostly unchanged
     Pcper seems mostly unchanged except considerably less news related to Storage 🙁
     While Hardocp is going away the hard forum tech news section is about a 3rd as active as it used to be. LinusTechtips news section is still reasonably active but it doesn’t have the conservative bend as its coming out of Canada.

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     • 

       Jeremy Hellstrom on April 8, 2019 at 6:28 pm

       Thanks to both of you for

       Thanks to both of you for that.  We are working on the storage gap, but as there is no one on the planet as addicted as Allyn, it is not easy.

       The token Canadian.

       Reply

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