Friday, August 30th 2024
AnandTech Shuts Down, an Icon of Tech News and Reviews Rides into the Sunset
AnandTech, a tech publication that practically everyone in the computing industry is aware of, announced that it is shutting down. Named after its founder, Anand Lal Shimpi, AnandTech was founded in 1997 by the then 15-year-old Anand, and went on to become one of the top sources of PC hardware and gaming news and reviews, particularly in the golden age of PC (the 1990s and the 2000s). It is one of the key sites that inspired the founding of TechPowerUp. Anand and his crew have remained our friends and peers throughout this time.
Some of the biggest tectonic shifts in the tech world were parsed through Anand's keyboard. At age 32, Anand left the publication he founded to pursue a job with Apple, handing it to his friend and editor, Ryan Smith, and publisher Purch, which was later acquired by Future PLC. The site would continue to maintain the highest standards of reporting and evaluation for the following decade. AnandTech says that Future PLC will keep the site up and running, so all of its invaluable content remains accessible. We will dearly miss you, AnandTech.
Some of the biggest tectonic shifts in the tech world were parsed through Anand's keyboard. At age 32, Anand left the publication he founded to pursue a job with Apple, handing it to his friend and editor, Ryan Smith, and publisher Purch, which was later acquired by Future PLC. The site would continue to maintain the highest standards of reporting and evaluation for the following decade. AnandTech says that Future PLC will keep the site up and running, so all of its invaluable content remains accessible. We will dearly miss you, AnandTech.
151 Comments on AnandTech Shuts Down, an Icon of Tech News and Reviews Rides into the Sunset
With this news, I'm pouring one out for my homies: Hardocp, Techreport, Xbitlabs and now Anandtech. You will all be missed.
Okay. now, the writing was on the wall ever since Anand departed, and it was good to see it keep going strong for a bit after, but it had worn away and perhaps that's due to being in the same parent company as Tom's hardware.
Yet, I loved how you could see all the old articles and comments on them. It puts things into perspective. I'm glad they're keeping the website online for a while longer for that purpose, and well there will always be the internet archive.
But, I want to say how much I appreciate TechPowerUp for the same reason. You can go back 2 decades and see the comments of what people were angry about back then, and see how it relates to now or how quaint it was.
So thank you to w1zzard as well for keeping this site going for as long as I can remember too.
[I]Continuing the Fight Against the Cable TV-ification of the Web[/I]
Finally, I’d like to end this piece with a comment on the Cable TV-ification of the web. A core belief that Anand and I have held dear for years, and is still on our About page to this day, is AnandTech’s rebuke of sensationalism, link baiting, and the path to shallow 10-o'clock-news reporting. It has been our mission over the past 27 years to inform and educate our readers by providing high-quality content – and while we’re no longer going to be able to fulfill that role, the need for quality, in-depth reporting has not changed. If anything, the need has increased as social media and changing advertising landscapes have made shallow, sensationalistic reporting all the more lucrative.
Sadly when I look at youtube (and I'm sure tiktok as well) all I see is click bait headlines with every product release being "the best" or "the worst" followed by shallow reviews
But yeah, the signs were there for a while. And getting sold to Purch kinda… I don’t know, was there so far in our history ANY enthusiast tech site that improved after an acquisition by soulless media company?
Then there are those like GN with well deserved methodological credibility as well as reach. Written websites need learn a lot from them that it only goes so far with solely reporting and testing, investigative journalism matters. OC3D is still up at least. Anand, OC3D, and TPU have always been my go to sources. Notebookcheck joined them after I got older and needed a laptop. Guru3D used to be alright but they've become redundant I believe due to my aforementioned criticism; honestly, visiting TPU for statistics, GN for details, and OC3D for the user experience is all I need. Hopefully these will remain for a longer time yet.
I read through the reviews from time to time and replies, but it's been a while since I've even done that. Shame that they're calling it quits, even if it wasn't a site I frequented much anymore.
Oh dear. I have to say...it sucks seeing things you just sort of got used to go away. I guess this is what everyone experiences getting older.
Later Ryan's testing lab burned down and Anandtech never did a GPU review again despite promises that they were coming.
Can't run a tech site and not review the one remaining PC component that really brings in the clicks.
Also the tech deep dives, AT's bread and butter under Anand went away.
After a while all you have left are silly phone and ancillary part reviews and some forums... Was a matter of time really.