Is it true that they're not going to sell the assets, and just shut everything down? If I had connections to an investment banker, I'd be trying to see if there's an in with Amazon...
I wasn’t privy to that information even before I left (Feb), but from what a few people who were/are privy to that information have told me, it doesn’t appear as though Amazon is at all interested in selling off the IP. So yea. Just shut it all down. Which is a fucking shame.
I've seen a few of these bonehead decisions in my career. Typically it happens because "MBAs are eating the world" -- someone with the idea that the number of things you have needs to be made smaller makes a ranked list of all the things in their area. Then they run "head -7" on the list.
I saw this happen long time ago when a company I worked for decided to close a product division because it was the fifth most popular i
the company. The people working on that product left, formed a startup, did the exact same thing and made $$$. Today the product category is a tens of billions industry.
It might be intentional then. Instead of having that content out there again where they will presumably have to pay affiliate commissions to the new owner, they must've calculated it's more profitable to just get rid of it.
From their announcement, that appears to be their plan. They said they will keep the site up for an limited amount of time. It's speculation on how long "limited" is. Months, years? There might be some clues with how quickly they shut down alexa.com "In December 2021, Amazon announced that it would be shutting down its Alexa Internet subsidiary. The service was then discontinued on May 1, 2022." which would put it at 5 months.
5 months seems not much time for a platform like this. I recently bought a lens that has been released 3 years ago; a gear review written today could provide useful information for much more than 5 months.
