Keeping the boards was a no brainer for me, as I am sure it drove fan traffic
According to what they said at the time they removed them, the boards really didn't drive the traffic at IMDb. They said less than 7% of IMDb visitors used the boards. That said, it was still a lot of people in raw numbers.
But I think you're right that the decision will have been based on corporate priorities, advertising revenue and whatnot. They weren't profitable and they may have been hurting Amazon's brand, as IMDb had a reputation for being a troll magnet. (No more than most places on the internet, if you ask me, but if you're Amazon, you don't need that headache if you're not making money from it anyway.)
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ace2 (607)
a month ago
This is why we can't have nice things. Even here many people are just looking for a fight by turning everything political or looking to spar on the wokeness of movies. Even legitimate disagreements are often laced with personal insults... why? Such encounters are rare in real life.
But once in a while I stumble on to good discussions. I wonder if the trolls are a vocal minority, or if this is a true reflection of society as it stands today.
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Melton (5549)
a month ago
Wokeness is an attempt to force a perverse political agenda into our entertainment, and is responsible for the death of entire genres like Comedy, and accounts for much of the decline in quality as crew are hired for diversity instead of talent.
It is impossible to talk about modern Hollywood films without mentioning the glaring issue of woke.
Don’t blame the customers, blame the studios.
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Keelai (36123)
a month ago
Woke = the African-American English synonym for the General American English word awake, has since the 1930s or earlier been used to refer to awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans.
You support Nazi salutes from Musk and releasing white supremacists from prison which is the reason you despise "woke".
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moviechatterer (16308)
a month ago
Even legitimate disagreements are often laced with personal insults... why? Such encounters are rare in real life.
Same reason as road rage , its the "disconnection" . People feel "separated" from the world in a car , and feel they can hurl insults at other drivers just as if they are insulting a fictional character on tv.
Same , and even more so , for the keyboard warriors at home talking anonymously on the internet.
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123Guy (7838)
a month ago
I suspect bad/real reviews were POTENTIALLY hurting SALES after Amazon bought them.
You don't sell timely Ghostbusters 2016 on discs and rentals if all the reviews and talk on boards are bad
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capuchin (3362)
a month ago
Amazon owned the IMDb for nearly 20 years before they got rid of the boards. I think if bad reviews were putting a serious dent in their core retail business, they would have acted rather sooner.
Amazon sells everything. I can't imagine people disliking the Ghostbusters remake - or any other movie, really - even showing up on their spreadsheets. There will have been lots of bad movies since 1998 that weren't well-reviewed by IMDb users and didn't sell well on Amazon's website. The two things are not directly related, except that they're both a result of a movie being bad.
No, no, it's far likelier that the reputation the IMDb boards had were denting advertising revenues. After all, they kind of alluded to trolling being an issue in their statements surrounding the closure.
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Stratego (31072)
a month ago
"I suspect bad/real reviews were POTENTIALLY hurting SALES after Amazon bought them.
Agreed, it wasn't the trolls.
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Melton (5549)
a month ago
Correct, Amazon didn’t want people shit-talking crap content that they were either making or hosting in Prime.
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