Krenum
Fully [H]
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2005
- Messages
- 19,180
If in 2023 Nvidia and AMD announce new GPU's and the prices still remain at $1800-2500 for a GPU, I'm out. 25 years was a good run.
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As am I. More than I'm willing to spend, compared to cost/benefit for other things.If in 2023 Nvidia and AMD announce new GPU's and the prices still remain at $1800-2500 for a GPU, I'm out. 25 years was a good run.
I hear ya, I have enough games on emulation to last a lifetime.As am I. More than I'm willing to spend, compared to cost/benefit for other things.
I'm super stubborn, so will play Dying Light and Master of Orion 2 until I die if this really goes down.
Ha! Sorry, nope, no ads, just like here. You cheap bastard.I looked at the page twice - once on my desktop and once again on my phone disconnected from my wifi. Why? Because I was looking for an ad to load and figured my pi-hole had trashed the ad(s) - this is the exact kind of information I'm looking for and I figured the least I could do was make sure Kyle got some ad revenue. And... there were no ads? Like, damn, I feel kind of obligated to pay for this since it's treating the community right.
............
I do think however that more and more people are not concerned with the inner workings of high-tech components and just want to buy something that suits their needs from a known brand that falls inside their budget. This market is evolving but I think the handwriting is on the wall especially regarding generations following Gen X. I do think that Millennials and Gen Z’ers are influenced to spend their money in different ways.
lol! Less cheap and more fed up with sites filled with shitty pop over / moving / drop down and other annoying ads. I’m finding as I get older, I’d rather just pay a sub for content I like than deal with ads.Ha! Sorry, nope, no ads, just like here. You cheap bastard.![]()
The new(ish) master of Orion (conquer the Stars) is a nice enough graphics update I’m willing to deal with the change in mechanics. It will also run on a 5 year old APU, so graphics card shouldn’t be an issue.As am I. More than I'm willing to spend, compared to cost/benefit for other things.
I'm super stubborn, so will play Dying Light and Master of Orion 2 until I die if this really goes down.
They seem to be doing pretty well alraedy. They are all growing, and even have money to spend on frivilous investments that will never see ROI.Find reviewers you trust and support them via patreon. Very simple solution and no more need discussion or complacency.
Completely agree on "Influencers": they're a blight on society. That said, even their empire is starting to wain. Mention "Influencer" to a growing number of people over 25 today and you get "cringe" as a response. Interestingly, this general distaste has, uncommonly, moved down the age bracket instead of up i.e. it's expanding to younger age groups.Influencers are one of the worst developments of modern times. A real cancer on society.
"Buy this thing because I am being paid to make you think it is cool" is the worst possible reason to buy anything.
There are still serious reviews of things in other fields. Cars, white wares, etc. etc, but they also tend to have a higher sticker price than what most people are spending on computer parts, even in this time of inflated price points.
To be honest, review sites with free review samples were always an odd incentive structure. The sites were being relied upon by readers to hold manufacturers accountable, but at the same time they were "sponsored" by the hardware vendors through review samples, ad banners and the like. It was always going to be difficult for many less principled reviewers to give honest reviews under that model. Some (like this site) were principled and gave honest reviews, others tried and fell short, and yet others were only pretending and were paid spokespeople in disguise.
Now it sounds as if the only category we have left is the last one, and they don't have to pretend anymore. Being an influencer just means you are a professional liar.
I certainly hope tech isn't the next thing in our lives to move to a "post fact" world, but it sure sounds like we are moving in that direction.
The best possible thing would be if we could get a PC hardware publication that follows the "Consumers Digest" model, with a paid subscription, buying all of its own hardware and reviewing it from a technical and critical perspective. Only thing is, peole have to be willing to pay for it, and with how undisciplined and unprincipled most people seem to be these days, I'm just not sure there are enough who would.![]()
Influencers are one of the worst developments of modern times. A real cancer on society.
They're succeeding because they focus on content creation.
The tech press in general would have been better suited if it sought out writers who understood tech rather than techies they thought could write.
Everyone thinks that if they can read, then they must be able to write. That's like saying everyone who went to school knows how to teach, and everyone who eats knows how to cook. Might as well say everyone who knows how to drive must be able to make cars. TechTubers took off because they are competent content creators.
This is all entertainment. Hire entertainers.
It really is a good time for me to be losing interest in the hobby. I don't plan on upgrading my system any time soon. When I do it will be back to simple air/AIO cooling. No more custom WC.
They are succeeding because today's youth is brought up in a bubble and have no real friends, so streamers serve as their imaginary pals.They're succeeding because they focus on content creation.
Not all tech reviewers are bad writers, you can't blame the dwindling interest in written content on that. People don't read books either. You can have an award winning author writing tech reviews if the typical consumer is too lazy or distracted to read more than a twitter post at a time.The tech press in general would have been better suited if it sought out writers who understood tech rather than techies they thought could write.
Written reviews are information, techtubers are entertainment. I've always said that. There should be room for both.Everyone thinks that if they can read, then they must be able to write. That's like saying everyone who went to school knows how to teach, and everyone who eats knows how to cook. Might as well say everyone who knows how to drive must be able to make cars. TechTubers took off because they are competent content creators.
In written form I would agree - reviews tend to be more dry and not a whole lot different than an engineering white paper. In my case it is the fastest way to search for and absorb specific pieces of information rapidly.That, and I know I am usually an outlier, but I have never viewed reviews as entertainment. I have viewed them as information, as data with which I can make a reasoned decision. They have been no more entertainment to me than reading an engineering white paper at work has been.
I doubt I will ever enjoy someone explaining a set graph of graphs to me on youtube over 20 minutes, when I could just look at results and get what I need in 3 mins or less. I just don't see the efficiency angle from putting something in video form.In written form I would agree - reviews tend to be more dry and not a whole lot different than an engineering white paper. In my case it is the fastest way to search for and absorb specific pieces of information rapidly.
But in video form the charisma of the presenter is a significant factor. Having Ben Stein read a teleprompter with the "dry eye" voice? Pass. But to have a presenter that is entertaining and intelligent enough to explain something technical will let me sit through hours of videos.
Take a Youtube channel like Project Farm for example. I admit - his content is a bit dry. Do I really care which weed whacker blades cut through 1" trees the fastest? Not really. But I find those videos entertaining enough to watch and I remember the brands that come out ahead and later on know where to go back to for further research. If that same information were in text format I would never even look at it.
One thing I have grown to dislike over the years is that less and less technical knowledge is available in text form. As forums shut down one by one and information is presented in video form it is less and less accessible by search.
I guess I've seen a few poorly written reviews over the years, but not a whole lot. At least not from the big sites.
Written reviews are information, techtubers are entertainment. I've always said that. There should be room for both.
Hard disagree. I will always value quality longform articles with “boring” numbers over flashy, “smash that subscribe button!!!1”, ad-infested “tech”tubers. Yes that means I may have to pay for such content as I used to for print magazines.That's not true, you only read poorly written reviews. The standards were -- are -- so low that nothing stands out. In the past, say 15 years, can you really remember any video card review you read? You even remember the name of the author? Reviews might have solid technical standards and good pedigrees, but bad writing is bad writing.
Have any hardware reviews stuck out as being able to change the way you think about life in general? I read Song of the Sausage Creature when I was a teenager and I'll never forget it. That was a review.
It's all about entertainment, even with information. Written stuff isn't on the decline, it's just that there's so much out there, that people have become extremely selective with what they bother to read.
The fact of the matter is that practically every tech website copied every other tech website, used the same, outdated format -- despite never being able to define a universal style -- and produced sterile, bland, bloated content, that could be immediately cribbed by entertainers, who provided our own information in better ways.
We, the tech press (I am guilty of making the same mistakes -- I'm really calling myself out, here) failed our audience. We abandoned you to TechTubers and paid shill websites by sticking to our boring, inoffensive, matter-of-fact guns. We acted like our competition was a dog-and-pony show, and they turned out to be rock stars. We didn't innovate, we didn't work hard enough to find a way to make numbers entertaining.
In hindsight, this is obvious. I wish we could have figured it out sooner.
Your last statement is definitely one of concern. Finding useful information is more and more devolving into searching through comments on a video rather than the substance of the video, itself. If you're lucky you will get a timestamp, but more often than not I find more useful information being pulled out of the comments or discussion thread than wasting my time watching a mouthpiece do it on video and drag it out to over 10 minutes for Youtube's discovery algorithm. It's even worse with avenues like Discord that do everything in their power to actively avoid fostering discussions on topics and leaving some sort of viable archive. Then you get into shadowbans, user deletion, etc. and the internet is a bleak wasteland of knowledge without context.In written form I would agree - reviews tend to be more dry and not a whole lot different than an engineering white paper. In my case it is the fastest way to search for and absorb specific pieces of information rapidly.
But in video form the charisma of the presenter is a significant factor. Having Ben Stein read a teleprompter with the "dry eye" voice? Pass. But to have a presenter that is entertaining and intelligent enough to explain something technical will let me sit through hours of videos.
Take a Youtube channel like Project Farm for example. I admit - his content is a bit dry. Do I really care which weed whacker blades cut through 1" trees the fastest? Not really. But I find those videos entertaining enough to watch and I remember the brands that come out ahead and later on know where to go back to for further research. If that same information were in text format I would never even look at it.
One thing I have grown to dislike over the years is that less and less technical knowledge is available in text form. As forums shut down one by one and information is presented in video form it is less and less accessible by search.
That's not true, you only read poorly written reviews. The standards were -- are -- so low that nothing stands out. In the past, say 15 years, can you really remember any video card review you read? You even remember the name of the author? Reviews might have solid technical standards and good pedigrees, but bad writing is bad writing.
Have any hardware reviews stuck out as being able to change the way you think about life in general? I read Song of the Sausage Creature when I was a teenager and I'll never forget it. That was a review.
It's all about entertainment, even with information. Written stuff isn't on the decline, it's just that there's so much out there, that people have become extremely selective with what they bother to read.
The fact of the matter is that practically every tech website copied every other tech website, used the same, outdated format -- despite never being able to define a universal style -- and produced sterile, bland, bloated content, that could be immediately cribbed by entertainers, who provided our own information in better ways.
We, the tech press (I am guilty of making the same mistakes -- I'm really calling myself out, here) failed our audience. We abandoned you to TechTubers and paid shill websites by sticking to our boring, inoffensive, matter-of-fact guns. We acted like our competition was a dog-and-pony show, and they turned out to be rock stars. We didn't innovate, we didn't work hard enough to find a way to make numbers entertaining.
In hindsight, this is obvious. I wish we could have figured it out sooner.
When I want to find out how well made a product is, I don't want to read a pretentious cringe, article starting with "It was a fine sunday morning, the grass was green, and the birds were chirping outside..." I just want to know if the product is good or not and how it compares to the competition.It's all about entertainment, even with information.
That's like asking if you remember any weather forecasts from the last 15 years that you read? No, because I don't need to, or even want to. If I remembered it that would be a problem. I gleamed the information that I needed from it and that's it, it served its purpose.In the past, say 15 years, can you really remember any video card review you read?
Then why are all written review sites struggling?Written stuff isn't on the decline, it's just that there's so much out there, that people have become extremely selective with what they bother to read.
Video format is the least effective way to communicate information. What you can gleam by reading a 5 page written review with graphs and tables in 5 minutes takes 30 minutes of your undivided attention in video format at least, and you won't remember half of it by the end.The fact of the matter is that practically every tech website copied every other tech website, used the same, outdated format -- despite never being able to define a universal style -- and produced sterile, bland, bloated content, that could be immediately cribbed by entertainers, who provided our own information in better ways.
It's the readership who abandoned reading in favor of cheap thrills and manufactured on screen drama.We, the tech press (I am guilty of making the same mistakes -- I'm really calling myself out, here) failed our audience. We abandoned you to TechTubers and paid shill websites by sticking to our boring, inoffensive, matter-of-fact guns. We acted like our competition was a dog-and-pony show, and they turned out to be rock stars. We didn't innovate, we didn't work hard enough to find a way to make numbers entertaining.
In hindsight, this is obvious. I wish we could have figured it out sooner.
Sad but true. The tech tubers are just producing what is wanting to be consumed.It's the readership who abandoned reading in favor of cheap thrills and manufactured on screen drama.
Anand's SSD reviews stand out immediately, especially when he was discussing the Sandforce controllers that everyone was using at the time that were way cheaper than intel. In fact, a lot of what Anand wrote was excellent now that I think on it a bit.That's not true, you only read poorly written reviews. The standards were -- are -- so low that nothing stands out. In the past, say 15 years, can you really remember any video card review you read? You even remember the name of the author? Reviews might have solid technical standards and good pedigrees, but bad writing is bad writing.
When I want to find out how well made a product is, I don't want to read a pretentious cringe, article starting with "It was a fine sunday morning, the grass was green, and the birds were chirping outside..." I just want to know if the product is good or not and how it compares to the competition.
That's like asking if you remember any weather forecasts from the last 15 years that you read? No, because I don't need to, or even want to. If I remembered it that would be a problem. I gleamed the information that I needed from it and that's it, it served its purpose.
Then why are all written review sites struggling?
Video format is the least effective way to communicate information. What you can gleam by reading a 5 page written review with graphs and tables in 5 minutes takes 30 minutes of your undivided attention in video format at least, and you won't remember half of it by the end.
It's the readership who abandoned reading in favor of cheap thrills and manufactured on screen drama.
Sad but true. The tech tubers are just producing what is wanting to be consumed.
Video killed the radio star
Anand's SSD reviews stand out immediately, especially when he was discussing the Sandforce controllers that everyone was using at the time that were way cheaper than intel. In fact, a lot of what Anand wrote was excellent now that I think on it a bit.
The biggest reason why I never wanted to transition and rely on YouTube is that it was a platform that I did not own or control in any way. Just personally did not seem like a good business decision to me.On top of that, Kyle rolls in with an opinion piece and many of you bow down like an echo chamber is exactly what you need.
That's not true, you only read poorly written reviews. The standards were -- are -- so low that nothing stands out. In the past, say 15 years, can you really remember any video card review you read? You even remember the name of the author? Reviews might have solid technical standards and good pedigrees, but bad writing is bad writing.
Have any hardware reviews stuck out as being able to change the way you think about life in general? I read Song of the Sausage Creature when I was a teenager and I'll never forget it. That was a review.
The biggest reason why I never wanted to transition and rely on YouTube is that it was a platform that I did not own or control in any way. Just personally did not seem like a good business decision to me.
That said, I think you might be missing the point. I am not slagging off TechTubers. What I am saying is that the hardware review industry is changing from its current state due to demographic changes that are transpiring in the world of computer hardware tech. My thoughts address the quality of content in no way, shape, or form.