That doesn't quite make sense. It's easy to version instances of websites. Since China already censors the internet, they only need to load a message-board-free version of IMDb on a Chinese hosted server. Many companies already provide pre-approved versions of their websites specifically built and hosted for the Chinese market with a unique .cn URL.

This happens all the time already, and even amazon has country-specific sites. In fact I can pretty much guarantee the IMDb that will be made available in china will not be the version we have here. So removing the message boards from the us .com version to appease Chinese communication censors doesn't add up.

China is already the largest user of IMDB. As far as advertising goes, the comment section carries as much weight as the ads with users.

I'll reiterate an earlier statement: somehow, someway, it was in their best financial interest to shut it down. Fear of litigation, operating expenses, I have no idea. I also have no idea why I really, really want to know why they shut it down.
I just do. 🙏

@sheezcrazy said:

I'll reiterate an earlier statement: somehow, someway, it was in their best financial interest to shut it down. Fear of litigation, operating expenses, I have no idea. I also have no idea why I really, really want to know why they shut it down.
I just do. 🙏

I do, too. But I fear they will never be honest with us about it.

@sheezcrazy said:

I'll reiterate an earlier statement: somehow, someway, it was in their best financial interest to shut it down. Fear of litigation, operating expenses, I have no idea. I also have no idea why I really, really want to know why they shut it down.
I just do. 🙏

Unless you can hack into their system and access interdepartmental messages over the past few months, there's no way to be sure. They're certainly not going to tell us the real reasons. A combination of them most likely. But what it boils down to can be summed up in one word: greed. I was going to ditch my Amazon Prime when my year's subscription ran out even before all this, because more and more movies and series are requiring extra purchases instead of being viewable with Prime. I like Netflix better. If it shows up on your menu you can watch it without paying them more money.

Amazon is getting as cheap and greedy as the damn cable company. The trend seems to have gained steam over the winter too. So whatever's going on at Amazon, there's a new sheriff in town and the name of the game is monetize, monetize, monetize. It's one thing to want to make money - that's what all businesses need to do. It's another thing when making money is all they care about and nothing else matters even a little bit. Not providing a quality product. Not making their customers happy. Just soaking people for every last dime and that's all. So if you did get an answer to your question, it wouldn't be anything deep or profound. If you've dealt with salespeople you know the mentality. They're like con artists on the legal side of the line; always jumping on the latest trends, looking for the next big score, not really thinking that far ahead. Your first question for the Amazon execs would probably be "Are you really that shortsighted?". Yep. Just because they've done well so far doesn't mean they're a bunch of geniuses. Even their core online retail business is starting to lose ground to Wal-Mart because they offer better prices.

Does anyone know?

@chrisjdel said:

Unless you can hack into their system and access interdepartmental messages over the past few months, there's no way to be sure. They're certainly not going to tell us the real reasons. A combination of them most likely. But what it boils down to can be summed up in one word: greed. I was going to ditch my Amazon Prime when my year's subscription ran out even before all this, because more and more movies and series are requiring extra purchases instead of being viewable with Prime. I like Netflix better. If it shows up on your menu you can watch it without paying them more money.

Amazon is getting as cheap and greedy as the damn cable company. The trend seems to have gained steam over the winter too. So whatever's going on at Amazon, there's a new sheriff in town and the name of the game is monetize, monetize, monetize. It's one thing to want to make money - that's what all businesses need to do. It's another thing when making money is all they care about and nothing else matters even a little bit. Not providing a quality product. Not making their customers happy. Just soaking people for every last dime and that's all. So if you did get an answer to your question, it wouldn't be anything deep or profound. If you've dealt with salespeople you know the mentality. They're like con artists on the legal side of the line; always jumping on the latest trends, looking for the next big score, not really thinking that far ahead. Your first question for the Amazon execs would probably be "Are you really that shortsighted?". Yep. Just because they've done well so far doesn't mean they're a bunch of geniuses. Even their core online retail business is starting to lose ground to Wal-Mart because they offer better prices.

Coming from someone who's not losing any sleep over the real reason because at this point it's moot. However, if greed is the beginning, middle and end of it...I wouldn't be surprised and I can't see anyone else being surprised either.

Corporate America has been greedy for a long long time and becoming increasingly greedier every damn day.

I agree with Chris that it's perfectly okay to want to make money. But when corporations care more about those at the top and they stop giving a sh*it about those at the bottom...it's time for people to stand together and say f*uck that. I really don't want to bring politics into this, but you kinda have to. Hard working Americans are getting screwed left and right, and yet we still keep the same as*sholes in office and elect more as*sholes on top of that.

What the f*uck happened to draining the swamp? The swamp looks like a millionaires and billionaires boys club.

Walmart really is no better. Most of their employees can't even make ends meet without the help of government assistance because Walmart avails itself of every damn loophole ever written to keep their tax obligations to a bare f*ucking minimum while they rake in the cash. Meanwhile, uncle Sam is sticking it to the rest of us.

If I'm gonna get f*u cked, I'd really appreciate being asked first.

+chrisjdel; you and I have had this conversation before. I agree with you. Did you see the History channel's "The Men Who Built America"? Very interesting, and it did confirm that big business owns, or more currently, IS our government. It's all about greed. I'm glad that I don't need much, it keeps me honest. Some people just can't be satisfied with enough, or a lot, or even everything. They always need more and more, and will seek to gain more without remorse or a negative affect on their conscience. Does this country still depend on the wealthy to provide the rank and file with employment? Was it really necessary to bail out Wall Street?

Re: IMDB,

Is anyone out there still using it? I'm not. It's sad too. I've watched a few new movies and immediately wanted to go to IMDB to see what other people have said about the movie and then remembered that the site is now pretty useless. I pretty much expect IMDB will fade away now.

TMDB is pretty good...and I'm enjoying it so far...but right now, it's still not quite up to par with how good IMDB used to be.

@sheezcrazy said:

+chrisjdel; you and I have had this conversation before. I agree with you. Did you see the History channel's "The Men Who Built America"? Very interesting, and it did confirm that big business owns, or more currently, IS our government. It's all about greed. I'm glad that I don't need much, it keeps me honest. Some people just can't be satisfied with enough, or a lot, or even everything. They always need more and more, and will seek to gain more without remorse or a negative affect on their conscience. Does this country still depend on the wealthy to provide the rank and file with employment? Was it really necessary to bail out Wall Street?

It wasn't really Wall St. that got bailed out. But it was big business. A select few. And yes, in that case...it was necessary. The alternative would have been a nightmare with long lasting global rippling effects.

@sheezcrazy said:

+chrisjdel; you and I have had this conversation before. I agree with you. Did you see the History channel's "The Men Who Built America"? Very interesting, and it did confirm that big business owns, or more currently, IS our government. It's all about greed. I'm glad that I don't need much, it keeps me honest. Some people just can't be satisfied with enough, or a lot, or even everything. They always need more and more, and will seek to gain more without remorse or a negative affect on their conscience. Does this country still depend on the wealthy to provide the rank and file with employment? Was it really necessary to bail out Wall Street?

They probably did need to bail out the banking system. But it should've been a straight buyout; we paid to save a bunch of dead companies, they should've been taken away from the people who were running them before and placed under new management. Some of those former management folks should've been on trial, and ended up serving time like any other criminal. If ever you needed proof that there's one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and another set of rules for the rest of us, the 2008 financial crisis provided more than enough. Not only did none of the CEOs go to jail - not a single one - but they got to keep their ridiculous bonuses and obscenely generous severance packages. Those golden parachutes should have been taken away first thing. Steal a hundred dollars from someone and you face criminal charges, steal a billion dollars from hundreds of thousands of people and you walk free. If the law applied the same logic to murder we'd be in serious trouble!

I don't know what people expected electing a poster boy for the one percent. Just because he got up there and talked the talk, like he was one of the little people. Suckers! Now we've got an oil industry toady running the EPA and corporate CEOs being openly invited down to Washington to make policy. Pretty much abandoning the pretense that big money interests don't dictate what "our" public officials do. I guess my only ray of sunshine here is that the open display of greed and pandering to big business will enrage the average citizen enough over the next few years to trigger our own version of the Arab Spring. A bloodless revolution would be preferable to the alternative, which would be our only other way out of a future of direct corporate government.

@chrisjdel said:

I guess my only ray of sunshine here is that the open display of greed and pandering to big business will enrage the average citizen enough over the next few years to trigger our own version of the Arab Spring. A bloodless revolution would be preferable to the alternative, which would be our only other way out of a future of direct corporate government.

I don't know. So many of those people are deaf dumb and blind. To think a orange hairy circus clown is fit to run the government is just beyond comprehension. But nevertheless, they think he's going to save them and give them their country back. A country he's willing to gamble with Russia.

Bat sh*it crazy and donkey sh*it stupid!

+Nubyan, you're right. You can't bail actually bail out a street. But it is home to the casino frequented by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Chase and the other legion of banks who were the main recipients of our bail out largess. And I also consider it to be the scene of the crime. The necessity of a bailout is the commonly held belief, and I would be very interested in seeing anything written on an opposing position. I certainly don't know enough about economics to formulate that position.

@sheezcrazy said:

+Nubyan, you're right. You can't bail actually bail out a street. But it is home to the casino frequented by Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Chase and the other legion of banks who were the main recipients of our bail out largess. And I also consider it to be the scene of the crime. The necessity of a bailout is the commonly held belief, and I would be very interested in seeing anything written on an opposing position. I certainly don't know enough about economics to formulate that position.

The global banking system is an integral part of the economy, a total Wall Street collapse would have triggered a domino chain of bank failures elsewhere and plunged the whole world into a deep recession. What we don't need to do is allow a small number of really really big institutions to control the whole system. That "too big to fail" crap needs to end. Not that they've done much of anything in that regard. Once the spotlight faded it was pretty much back to business as usual. The government needs to rediscover an ancient and long buried secret: anti-trust laws. They need to break up these big corporations into a whole bunch of little ones that are small enough to fail.

+chrisjdel: I see we agree on Trump as well. I grew up in the northeast, but retired to a southern red state. The mentality here is mind-boggling. These people actually think Trump would enjoy coming to a barbecue at their homes and have a Bud Lite with them. The majority are receiving government entitlements or subsidies, and yet they hate the party that is responsible for their inception. To tell them the very clean air they breath is in jeopardy now is met with scorn.