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POTN forums closure and why PV must stay alive
  • Facebook was founded 2004, three years after POTN. Twitter was started 2006. Instagram was founded 2010. Snapchat 2011. Discord 2015, Tik Tok 2016. All those multi-billion dollar companies have conquered the market, created the social media as we know it, intentionally aiming to addict by algorithms, put people into own bubbles, track you to target ads, lose content validity in short time so that new content gets created constantly. Some of them reduce message lengths thus directing young people to short attention span and think less about complete sentences. Photos are shared via social media apps, Whatsapp and cloud services. This trend has sped up in last few years, and AI will change it all again. Soon people won't have to write or create anything - it's all done for them.

    Sad truth is that there is no place for conventional forums any more with the recent generations. Traffic is down. Enthusiasm is down. Mood is down. Discussion is down.

    There are many old timer members who keep posting, but that does not sustain the site. New members appear, but they do not post much, just browse and like here and there. That is the reality. When everyone had only computers (PC or Mac), writing was much faster and easier - now tapping seems to be the main communication method.

    Google delivers fewer and fewer ads in forums (most ad slots are empty, meaning we don't have even a chance to get anything), so for a long time I've had to pay most of the server costs from my own pocket, even with some occasional donations which I appreciate.

    https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1530921

    Thing is - they made wrong extrapolation

    image

    But problem is that social networks are not stable platforms, far from it.

    https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

    None of them have their users in mind other than to rip them and throw out.

    Hence people need to have places where they don't have various shits calling them or trying to push corporate agendas.

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  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • Hi Vitaly, I rarely come here anymore. Since the special military operation and following restrictions in your country restricting what you can say and what language you can use, I visit other forums where things are more open. But I get what you are saying in this post even though you yourself have particular special problems which I have alluded to above. Anyway I wish you well and look forward to the time when your site is flourishing again and more people can benefit from your expert knowledge.

  • Things had already gotten worse before but with covid the situation got out of hand. It has become a conspiracy, fantasy politics and geopolitics site where photography and video posts are scattered among posts about capitalism, flat earthism and other nice crap. The people who frequented this place were only interested in the cameras. Of course, the site is Vitaliy's and he can do as he pleases. He certainly can't blame anyone else for the condition the site is in. Best wishes.

  • @LongJohnSilver

    Don't you noticed something strange around you? Like huge inflation, big wars, nuclear threats?

    So, it is not Vitaliy's fault. Vitaliy just tried to warn and discuss valuable topics.

    I suggest to look at 2011-12 topics where lot of guys tried make fun of me for my point of view and future prospects (that turned out to be quite good).

    Camera market is going to hell all last years, constantly shrinking in size and with rising prices. I am not also to blame for this.

    I want you to check sites that had been discussing cameras exclusively - many are dead, and remaining on life support from shady SEO oriented firms.

    Your post can be calmly translated as follows - I had valuable mirror that showed me reality, but I don't like it, so it can be nice to shatter it. Quite stupid position, sin't it?

  • keep on posting your things @vitaliy_kiselev

    For me personal view was always about anything, where some really smart people came originally from a camera forum dvx user but things do change and well we all know it’s history.

  • I hope this forum keeps going. It's one of the few places where users post real-world, usability feedback about equipment.

    Everything is cyclical, so eventually people will want specialist topic sites rather than trawling through social media looking for specific information.

    I just hope sites like PV can survive until the tide turns.

  • @DeanUK

    It is little more complex than cycle, Google and Yandex (largest Mordor search engine) has special teams dedicated to finding and deranking forums in search results. And not all forums, but they selected according to some weird metrics, but a lot.