On August 30th of this year, Anandtech published the article “End of the Road: An AnandTech Farewell” by Ryan Smith, saying goodbye to Anandtech, the classic technology website that has accompanied us for more than 27 years. Is its end a sign of our times, a sign of the times when people simply stop reading about technology?
The journey that started with a review of the AMD K6 processor on April 3, 1997, written by the site’s founder, Anand Lal Shimpi himself, made Anandtech a trusted technology site that didn’t stay on the surface, but devoted itself to extensive and detailed reviews and explanations of technology principles. In the field of technology websites, Anandtech represented a certain stamp of quality that did not change over time, remaining neutral and honest. But how writes Ryan Smith, everything comes to an end – and it’s time for them to say goodbye.
I feel sorry for Anandtech, although I’ve been reading less of it lately than I used to. Interest in text sites is declining, people are reading less and less, video is clearly becoming dominant – and Future’s publishing house included both Anandtech and Tom’s Hardware – and they seem to have decided to consolidate efforts and keep the more readable and tabloid Tom’s Hardware running . So, for example, we can find it at Tom’s Hardware article about converting old Nvidia Geforce GT 730 graphics into a purse for $1024, a topic that Anandtech would probably not cover. Yes, it’s a bit silly, but if you pay attention, you can clearly see that iDnes, for example, has been making similar tabloids lately.
Anandtech was factually focused, went deep – and that’s why it was among the most respected and respected technology sites. Its authors were interested not only in traditional technologies: Ian Cutress, who founded the channel TechTechPotato, for example, is interested in advanced processor designs including server technologies and quantum computers, which is not something that interests the classic PC user. It’s simply about knowing somewhere else. The fact that Ian Cutress started his own YouTube channel, however, points to one of the reasons why interest in classic tech sites is declining.
There seem to be more reasons for that – and I’ll break them down here in no particular order of importance, because I can’t clearly determine the order of importance. The decline of classic technology sites is probably related to all the individual factors, but which of them is more significant than others is up for debate.
Source: pctuning.cz
