In later years, Pitchfork became less antagonistic and more professional in style, and began covering more mainstream music and issues of gender, race and identity.

The Washington Post described them as "brutal" and "merciless", writing: "The site's stable of critics often seemed capricious, uninvested, sometimes spiteful, assigning low scores on a signature 10-point scale with punitive zeal.

[9] Around the turn of the millennium, the American music press was dominated by monthly print magazines such as Rolling Stone, creating a gap in the market for faster-moving publication that emphasized new acts.

In 2004, following staff tensions about Schreiber's advertising income, Pitchfork started paying writers from their first articles at a slightly improved rate.

[4] The influence of Pitchfork on music careers declined around the turn of the decade, as streaming and social media fractured audiences and reduced the need for gatekeepers.

[21][22] Streaming services began to fulfill Pitchfork's function of helping new artists find audiences, and independent music criticism moved to podcasts and YouTube.

[11] According to the Los Angeles Times, "The internet era that birthed Pitchfork's blend of saucy writing, outre tastes and massive popularity [was] by and large over.

[3] The Condé Nast CEO, Bob Sauerberg, described Pitchfork as a "distinguished digital property that brings a strong editorial voice, an enthusiastic and young audience, a growing video platform and a thriving events business".

[4] The Condé Nast chief digital officer, Fred Santarpia, was criticized when he said the acquisition would bring "a very passionate audience of millennial males into our roster".

[24] The Atlantic connected the comment to a 2014 Nielsen report that found that millennial men were heavy music listeners and were more interested in streaming services than other demographics.

[4] With Schreiber aiming to make it the world's best repository for music content, Pitchfork began creating videos and retrospective articles, covering classic albums released before its founding.

[9] Patel came under pressure to cut costs amid declining traffic from social media, and competition from streaming platforms, which offered a new means for listeners to discover music.

[46] Tani and The Washington Post's Chris Richards expressed disgust that Pitchfork, once independent and provocative, would be absorbed into an establishment men's magazine.

[23] In The Guardian, Laura Snapes wrote that Pitchfork had provided a vital "leading example" and doubted that specialist music journalism could survive without it.

[47] Schreiber said that commentators were "premature to eulogize Pitchfork", as it retained a skeleton crew continuing its mission, and said he was pleased with the work it had published since the announcement.

[4][2] The critic Steven Hyden said it offered an alternative to music magazines at the end of the 20th century, which were publishing content about Star Wars, nu metal and pop punk.

[12] In The Verge, Elizabeth Lopatto wrote that early reviews were brash, unprofessional and often bizarre, but that this distinguished Pitchfork from traditional media and made it fun to read.

[51] The journalist Dave Itzkoff described Pitchfork reviews as "defiantly passionate and frustratingly capricious" with an "aura of integrity and authenticity that made such pronouncements credible, even definitive, to fans ... insinuating themselves into the grand tradition of rock criticism, joining the ranks of imperious and opinionated writers".

[2] Schreiber described the reviews of one early Pitchfork writer, Brent DiCrescenzo, as dense with dialogue and pop culture references, "exploring outlandish scenarios".

The editor Amy Phillips illustrated this by comparing her coverage of the announcement of two Radiohead albums, years apart; the first was excitable, whereas the second was more professional and factual.

[9] In 2014, the contributor Nate Patrin said Pitchfork had become "what publications like the Village Voice used to be in terms of letting writers go deep without feeling pressured to talk down to readers", with long-form articles and documentaries.

[51] Writers who did not want to use their names, or failed to include bylines with their submissions, were credited as Ray Suzuki, similarly to the filmmaker pseudonym Alan Smithee.

[55] In The Ringer, Rob Harvilla wrote that a 10.0 from Pitchfork "carries all the historical weight of five stars in Rolling Stone or five mics in The Source ... with its maddening and theoretically precise approach to decimal places, such that an ocean of feeling separates an 8.1 from an 8.9".

[55] Artists who have received perfect scores on release include Radiohead, Fiona Apple, Kanye West, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead and Wilco.

[56] In its early years, Pitchfork was criticized as mean-spirited and elitist, and for publishing reviews that do not meaningfully discuss the music, playing into stereotypes of the cynical hipster.

[50] In 2018, the music journalist Robert Christgau described the early years of Pitchfork as "a snotty boys' club open to many 'critics' ... Too many amateur wise-asses and self-appointed aesthetes throwing their weight around.

[2] He suggested that the writers' lack of training or experience, and the fact that they worked for low or no pay, created a sense of authenticity and undermined the authority of traditional media.

"[2] The online magazine Consequence of Sound emulated Pitchfork early on, "especially as it came to creating an editorial voice, developing a consistent content strategy, and packaging a love of music in a compelling way", according to its founder, Alex Young.

[64] The critic Carl Wilson said Pitchfork drove a "feeding frenzy about band discovery" in North American music journalism, with publications vying to discover new acts.

[50] Other acts whose careers were boosted by Pitchfork in the 2000s include the Dismemberment Plan, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens.