CPF Sold - Under New Management

There are a few people who are active on both. Each one has its positive attributes. How many different types and styles of everything are there? I am glad that I only have to surf two English language flashlight forums, instead eight. Instead of being born with two BLF genes, or two CPF genes, I was born with one BLF gene, and one CPF gene.

Yeah, I still have a CPF account, but I only check out CPF when an interesting Google search result pops up.

I’m more curious as to what loss Greta took on the sale.

4 years ago, when a lot of software problems were plaguing them, but they were still pretty vibrant, she might have banked some coin, but not right now, IMO.

Toykeeper was tracking traffic as of a year ago and they were dropping quite a bit, so I’m sure that it was a ‘fire sale,’ of sorts?

Chris

Interesting. Well, I wish them the best. Everyone please avoid CPF bashing, I think we can turn that page now. And of course, huge thanks to all of our friendly and active BLF members that make this an enjoyable place to hang out (most of the time :wink: ).

CPF value

BLF value

It today’s world, that’s kind of surprising and sad, both at the same time.

I would think that BLF would be pulling more coin, but maybe ‘flashlights’ are just waning as a hobby?

A lot of nerds aren’t vocal.

Chris

I don't trust those numbers.

I wonder which site actually has more traffic.

No offense bud, but this place isn’t exactly hopping with activity.

Neither are mine, so I don’t care one way, or the other.

Chris

a couple of years ago, the valuation for BLF was 241K and CPF was 242K

I think Reddit, and especially Facebook and Instagram, have captured a lot of flashlight traffic too…

CPF is sort of the Surefire lovers relic site.
BLF is modders heaven
Insta and Face are $$$ sources for people selling expensive “customs”
(just my opinion, I dont actually use social media myself)
Reddit has a lot of newbie traffic, but the UI of the site is archaic and makes posting pics difficult

if you have an expensive light to sell, CPF has more high end buyers than BudgetLF

Suddenly “red boots” pops in my head, for what reason I know not what. :wink: :smiley:

242K… rather specific number. Why not 250K?

CPF was once an amazing place. But it was all about the membership. Various changes caused many people to walk. I think their Draconian rules on reselling shut out a lot of folks. I go back there on occasion and it’s pretty much people talking old-school… Malkoff. McGizmo. Surefire. Still some people kicking around with an incan fetish. But for some reason, the way upper end of custom flashlights is alive there. Folks who drop $1k for a light without batting an eye. Tritium eye candy galore that would make you wonder how much cheaper the light was than the tritium. Unobtanium customs for the weekend Porsche and Lamborghini drivers. Yet, the old BBS software? I guess it’s nostalgia… Yet, no surprise that traffic has been waning.

I have no clue what people took over for CPF management. I don’t know what they think they can do with it. Given the traffic of BLF, isn’t this like “the place to be” for hobbyist LED flashlight concerns? I don’t know what more they could offer, or if they could even pull away traffic from BLF.

Bottom line — Lumintop partnered with the BLF community to produce an amazing light. I don’t think CPF ever achieved that. So, it’ll be interesting to see what “angle” CPF takes going forward.

jon_slider nailed it my fellow flashlight friend

Interesting site, cutecounter. So if we sold BLF we could buy around 4,200 Convoy S2+ lights and distribute them to dark countries. :)

Kinda sad to see that TuCows is the registrar.

I do think Reddit and Facebook have both taken a lot of traffic. Different platforms for different folks. Too much chaff on Reddit (I do enjoy a few other subs there and the r/flashlight is a good place mostly). Seems like forums in general just get a lot less participation these days. Maybe because short text and insta-this-insta-that are about what many can handle and writing/reading are more effort (and I don't mean that in a negative way necessarily).

I did Reddit HiFi 20+ years ago and quickly left. Too progressive and a low signal to noise ratio. I doubt that the progressive commie types are into boutique lights, or even modding cheap shit, but that’s just a guess on my part?

Hobbies ebb and flow and the killer flashlights were a thing a decade ago, but for here, it’s’modding’ and that’s a small subset of the ‘flashlight whole.’

Chris

If DM51 is still a mod there, I sure won’t be going back. And indeed, I suppose I wouldn’t go anyway.

Isn’t this at least the second or third time? I remember being on CPF then years later it was totally changed and I had to re-register and it just wasn’t ass good as it was before (they even switched bb’s. Think it happened a third time. But the original CPF was great.

You’ve been here for one day and you’re wondering why CPF is in trouble?

Chris

I’m still there, after 15 years. I never had trouble but I can see how some might. It’s still a nostalgic trip for me as it’s where my hobby started. I did most of my reviews there too. But unfortunately it’s a bit of a shell now. Still nice to visit but not a place to hang out a lot.

CPF looks uglier than before, and still on downhill route.

One really positive thing i see is ability to upload pics, former pic posting policy was PIA.

oh come on, it’s much better now.
The old forum was very slow and 1990-looking, and lacking a lot of basic functionality from newer forums.

This forum is on the same path as well.
It still uses Drupal 7 which had end-of-life like 15 years ago, with some forum module that is likely not maintained anymore, that’s why an upgrade would require programming work.
And even the latest Drupal is on the path to its death, along with PHP hopefully. We have multicore processors for years. These outdated languages were made for single-cpu, single-thread era. There are modern languages that natively support multi-threading, and with a much better syntax as well.