[HN Gopher] The Return of Digg, a Star of an Earlier Internet Era
___________________________________________________________________
The Return of Digg, a Star of an Earlier Internet Era
Author : frankacter
Score : 137 points
Date : 2025-03-05 12:06 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| returnInfinity wrote:
| Reddit is worth 27 billion right now. What could have been.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| The founders sold Reddit for how much was it $10M or $20M?
| Macha wrote:
| To be fair, that was followed by like 5-6 years being a thing
| that Conde Nast had probably forgotten they owned and going
| between making a loss and barely breaking even with a
| skeleton crew.
|
| Now it's got a very large team, all the investor pandering
| and user hostile activity, and instead it's making a large
| loss, which of course for investors means it's more valuable.
| conradfr wrote:
| I still don't understand how one of the most popular
| website with free content and moderation and extremely
| cacheable content was never profitable.
|
| Unrelated but they removed the <subreddit>.reddit.com
| shortcut some months ago.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Most people aren't willing to pay for content, and it's
| harder to target ads, or you're not showing ads at the
| right time.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Conde practically forgetting about reddit was one of the
| best things that happened to it. There was pressure to
| scale the side up, but they didn't have time to chase
| engagement metrics to the detriment of the experience. It's
| probably the only $10B+ tech company I can think of that
| ran so lean for so long.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| It might get acquired by Elon. :)
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| *quietly checks the status of phpBB
| nedrylandJP wrote:
| A decent number of redditors moved to Lemmy instances after
| reddit pulled that move with the API/unofficial apps a few
| summers ago
| Macha wrote:
| It felt like the Lemmy instances really died off in a
| month or two.
| baggachipz wrote:
| Some did, others are thriving. Still a small community
| though.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've moved our forums to Xenforo a few years ago, by the
| creators of vBulletin. It's alright if you liked vB but it
| doesn't seem to get much updates, but that might be because
| it's "finished" software.
|
| I also tried some years ago to install Discourse but you
| need all kinds of server setup for that, too complicated to
| be an alternative to "old fashioned" PHP forum software.
| And that's before going into the UX, which is more webapp
| than old fashioned forums. I'm glad I didn't push through
| with that migration.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _it doesn 't seem to get much updates, but that might
| be because it's "finished" software._
|
| Thank the gods.
| almosthere wrote:
| https://github.com/NodeBB/NodeBB might be worth checking
| out
| Loughla wrote:
| Digg killed itself and let reddit eat its lunch with user hostile
| practices. Just like slashdot before digg.
|
| I find it fascinating that tech has gotten to a point where user
| hostile moves don't have as much of an impact anymore. Reddit
| pushing new Reddit layout and killing 3rd party apps is what did
| it for me. But it seems like nobody really cares.
|
| I don't know what it means, but it means something.
| nehal3m wrote:
| Those are the effects of enshittification. Users and
| advertisers are stuck.
|
| Quoting Cory Doctorow: "I call this enshittification, and it is
| a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination
| of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value,
| combined with the nature of a "two-sided market", where a
| platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to
| the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that
| passes between them."
| nailer wrote:
| This seems fitting, Doctorow was also on
| https://boingboing.net/ which started as a place for
| whimsical or intellectually curious content but now every
| third article is obsessed with US politics.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Reddit got big enough that the competition died off. When Digg
| took a nosedive there were plenty of other places with some
| community people could move to. Even BB forums were still a
| thing back then. Now pretty much everything that isn't
| extremely niche, and even many things that are, have been
| soaked up by Reddit.
| dingnuts wrote:
| lately Reddit has been feeling really like dead Internet
| though. every subreddit is talking about the same current
| event all the time.
|
| there are smaller spaces that are thriving just like the old
| days.
| hylaride wrote:
| Agreed. Over the past 2 years so many subreddits have
| devolved into what can be best described as doom scrolling
| ragebait, which is what reddit wants because it keeps
| eyeballs going for advertisers.
|
| My city's subreddit when from "here's what's cool, going
| on, or new" to constant political posts. I'm Canadian and
| it's all but been determined that political forces are
| using AI posting to complain and point all problems at the
| current government (it's not clear who is doing it, whether
| far-right, foreign, or the opposition itself) on all
| Canadian focused subreddits.
|
| There's also some curious stories about how a lot of the
| very good moderators of some of the larger ones like
| r/Canada, their provincial/city/regional counterparts, etc
| were all pushed out via various means.
| Macha wrote:
| My country's subreddit had a pretty big chunk of the
| country reading it, and it feels like the courts section
| of a newspaper gets posted to it every day, which I
| wonder how much that contributes to people's perception
| of the crime rate being worse than reality.
| rwmj wrote:
| I was talking to some reddit mods on a big subreddit and
| apparently it was to do with the free API being turned
| off, and a lot of moderation tools consequently stopping
| working. After that the subreddit took a nosedive because
| they couldn't control the flood of bots and bad actors.
| 34679 wrote:
| It's important to note that reddit has embraced bots
| since the very beginning, with the founders using them to
| inflate activity. As more and more bots flood the
| platform, they continue to displace and drive away real
| humans.
| arkh wrote:
| > lately Reddit has been feeling really like dead Internet
| though.
|
| Saccharined killed. You used to be able to make some really
| vitriolic comments on most subs just for the lulz and only
| get downvoted to hell and back. But nowadays if you're not
| following the doxa you get perma-banned from some sub first
| then next day perma-banned from reddit itself. And if you
| comment on one of the main subs you go directly to reddit
| permaban.
| Macha wrote:
| Honestly the amount of vitriolic comments has increased,
| and that seems to be more part of the problem than what
| you've presented here.
|
| Sure, most of them are still downvoted to shit, and it's
| not clear how many are trolls vs true believers, but I do
| think it encourages the true believers that their views
| are more widespread.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I quoted Islamic religious leaders views on homosexuality
| during the height of "Free Palastine" and got a 3 day
| site wide ban for spreading hate and a permaban from
| r/worldnews.
|
| The API change went into effect soon after and that was
| it for me. It was time to go anyway. Had been on the site
| for 12 years, never a ban or anything, but in the last
| year received 5-6 other sub level bans.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Was there a reason to share those quotes in that context
| other than to spread FUD about Islam and weaken support
| for Palestine?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Yes, people seem to have misunderstandings about the
| uncompromising conservative views that underpin the
| Palestinian state.
|
| Should Israel carpet bomb Palestine and everyone in it?
| No.
|
| Should the world still tolerate states built on a
| foundation of homophobia, misogyny, and brain washing?
| Also no.
|
| If it was up to me I'd disperse the entire population of
| Israel/Palestine, and then sink the whole land mass into
| the Mediterranean. Religious zealots fucking everything
| up for everyone because they genuinely think that their
| Santa Clause is real.
| kacesensitive wrote:
| I miss 2021-22 reddit. Seemed we finally went back to
| normal.
| superkuh wrote:
| Shifting baselines in action. 2021-22 reddit was/is
| terrible. It had already accepted the massive injections
| of venture capital and turned into facebook for all the
| refugees in the second half of the 2010s. Things like
| corporations (and for-profit human persons) posting to
| their own account pages instead of subreddits, the
| terrible redesigns, constant top-down moderation instead
| of letting subreddits be like forums, etc, etc.
|
| Reddit normal is 2008-2013. This kind of normal still
| exists on usenet, if you seek it.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I remember that period as the one where non-nude sexual
| images of children was a huge problem on reddit, but it
| wasn't specifically against the rules. The admins were
| doing things like working closely with, even giving out a
| mod of the year award to, violenacrez, the guy who
| created and maintained r/jailbait and r/creepshots1 as
| well as dozens of similar subs. The material itself was
| bad enough but it was _extremely obvious to everyone_
| that these subs were being used for people to meet and DM
| each other CSAM.
|
| And then of course that period basically ended with
| gamergate, for whom reddit was one of the central venues
| to choose targets and organize harassment campaigns from.
| Also not against the rules at the time, since the
| harassment happened elsewhere and was only coordinated on
| reddit.
|
| Reddit has always sucked.
|
| 1 Both _explicitly_ intended for sharing sexual &
| sexualized photos of minors
| halyconWays wrote:
| Normal reddit died when Carmen Ortiz drove Aaron Swartz
| to suicide over persecuting him like a terrorist for
| downloading a few thousand public domain scholarly
| articles. (Which Meta and others now do with proprietary,
| copyrighted material at a volume 1 million times more.)
| foolfoolz wrote:
| reddit is a really weird website these days. the main subs
| push misinformation / ai generated garbage. the same posts
| are on every sub. the self post subs are almost 100% ai
| written. the comments which historically have been
| sometimes useful just feel hollow
| halyconWays wrote:
| The major subreddits are almost entirely bots as well. Try
| posting anything authentic and you'll be banned, regardless
| of how old your account is or how human you appear to be.
| It's entirely controlled, fake discussion pretending to be
| authentic due to the legacy of the site. The concept of
| moderators being volunteers from the community died off a
| long time ago, and there are zero safeguards to ensure they
| aren't captured entities from some organization or NGO; in
| fact, the architecture of the site itself doesn't even view
| this threat as a threat.
|
| Remember, once considered a conspiracy theory, Ghlisane
| Maxwell was a powermod.
| thih9 wrote:
| But where? What spaces?
|
| I know about wikia/fandom, discords (both as user hostile
| as reddit), or some ancient topical forums (neither small
| not thriving).
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Wikia/fandom are both as bad if not worse than reddit if
| you don't have an ad-blocker.
| roger_ wrote:
| Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never ambitious
| enough to seek a broader base or try to foster communities?
|
| I don't recall any user hostile practices, though I was just a
| passive user back in the day. I remember a few redesigns that
| people weren't entirely pleased with, but nothing on the scale
| of the "new" Digg.
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| I think it's more that second thing than the first one. I
| joined slashdot in the late 90s, and though some of the OSDN
| stuff briefly sniffed at enshittification, they didn't really
| ever take that plunge.
|
| IMO, people who liked the user generated aspect of slashdot
| also liked the higher velocity of digg, reddit, and even HN
| better as those came along. People who liked the editorial
| curation angle that distinguished slashdot from these newer
| takes came to prefer more curation and professional editorial
| commentary, leaving slashdot in an odd in-between space.
| jghn wrote:
| This is an interesting point.
|
| I was a heavy USENET user for several years before finding
| Slashdot. With /. I found myself rarely going to the source
| link and almost never reading the editorial commentary. I'd
| go straight to the comments and start reading what people
| had to say. All these decades later and what I love about
| sites like HN and Reddit is immediately wading in and
| embracing the zeitgeist. I *loved* Twitter for a long time
| for the same reason.
|
| But you're right. There are others I knew who were the
| exact opposite. And those people today have very different
| internet habits than I do.
| emacsen wrote:
| My read on Slashdot was that we need to separate out the
| folks who built the site from those who run it.
|
| The original authors executed an exit strategy. They sold the
| site, got a bunch of money, and left to work on new things.
|
| The various new owners (of which there have been a few) have
| never been ambitious about expanding Slashdot, either in
| technical or social scope.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think Slashdot died when Cmdrtaco sold out, not for any
| real nefarious reason, but simply that it was no longer "a
| list of things Cmdrtaco was interested in" but had spread so
| wide that it was more of a mish-mash. Early on it was nice,
| because if you liked the things Cmdrtaco was interested in,
| you'd like almost every post (even if you got mad at it).
| Once it was wide, it was harder to follow.
|
| Digg had a similar issue, but was more "active" for awhile.
| Reddit really "solved" the problem by having subreddits so
| you could curate what you were interested in.
|
| Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there wasn't
| really replacement people.
| ta1243 wrote:
| > Also, the people who were using /. grew up, and there
| wasn't really replacement people.
|
| This is a big thing. The internet users of the late 90s
| just don't exist any more. The internet isn't for nerds any
| more, it's as ubiquitous an infrastructure as electricity
| or roads, everyone uses it.
|
| The generation before slashdot from the 80s upto Eternal
| September were another group
|
| You can't recreate slashdot today, because the people don't
| exist.
| munificent wrote:
| _> The internet users of the late 90s just don 't exist
| any more._
|
| We still exist, we're just a very small slice of a much
| larger pie. Also, we are likely a less profitable target
| for advertisers so aren't an important demographic for
| ad-driven companies.
| bombcar wrote:
| I take it more to mean "people who have to be technically
| inclined to a degree to get online in the 90s" don't
| really exist as a category that is self-selecting.
|
| The other thing you mention is huge, too, of course. All
| the "famous" things from the 90s were basically labours
| of love by individual hackers who then looked for ways to
| fund it. Now everything is all about ad-revenue dollars.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Also how many times can we talk about the Enlightenment
| window manager?
| serviceberry wrote:
| > Did Slashdot really kill itself or was it just never
| ambitious enough to seek a broader base or try to foster
| communities?
|
| It's still around, but there's one simple DAU measure we can
| look at: it used to be that stories would get 100-500
| comments, and now they usually get 5-30.
|
| But I don't think it's a good example of what the parent is
| complaining about. Slashdot didn't change to be more hostile,
| it was fairly hostile from the get go. It had a snarky
| commenting culture, fairly brutal moderation, etc. You'd be
| downvoted into oblivion for the most minor transgressions -
| like not hating Microsoft enough.
|
| It just happened to be the only game in town for geek news.
| But then, a number of alternatives popped up - tech-related
| subreddits, HN, etc. I stopped using Slashdot not because of
| any redesign or policy change, but simply because I could get
| the same news elsewhere, with a lower entry bar to
| participate.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| They sold to Conde Nast or something.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I think Slashdot's problem was that the moderation there
| wasn't powerful enough. The percentage of trolls reached a
| certain point, and then some fraction of non-troll users got
| disgusted enough to leave, so the percentage of trolls was
| now higher, and more non-troll users got disgusted and
| left...
|
| That vicious circle destroyed the community. IMHO.
| mtzaldo wrote:
| It could mean people are being payed to post content to keep
| momentum.
| criddell wrote:
| Kevin Rose has talked about how important some of the power
| users (like Mr Babyman) was to Digg. He didn't say so
| explicitly (not that I recall), but I got the impression that
| there was definitely some kind of relationship between Digg
| and some users.
| joelthelion wrote:
| As long as enough people care enough to move to something else,
| we're good.
|
| Right now, it looks like lemmy might have just enough momentum,
| but I'm not sure yet.
| suspended_state wrote:
| Reddit has a much broader aim than Slashdot ever did. Slashdot
| _is_ just about discussing news, just like HN. Reddit is
| basically a BBS with no particular topic or usage in mind. They
| cannot be compared.
| looseyesterday wrote:
| I think reddit is the best among a very large selection of poor
| choices. Where else could you go?
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| People already left and they're in Discord. Reddit today is a
| shell of what it was.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| You don't have to link anything but what kind of discord
| servers? Also the problem with discord for me is the fact
| that information only exists momentarily. Reddit search is
| bad but at least you can Google. Discord servers are
| basically impenetrable if you can't check it constantly
| dartos wrote:
| Private discord servers for everything nowadays.
|
| The open searchable internet is dead for people trying to
| find community, imo.
| baggachipz wrote:
| Lemmy has been growing quite well and has a passionate
| userbase. It's still microscopic compared to Reddit, but it
| has great apps and scratches the itch for me.
| bluGill wrote:
| So long as you stay away from anything politics (including
| news!). They are extremely left wing - the developers
| believe the Chinese communist party can do no wrong. There
| are instances that are not quite that bad, but they are
| still very left wing and make central or right wing
| positions unwelcome.
|
| There are some good tech communities there.
| Steltek wrote:
| The politics are so bad that I think people should stay
| away from Lemmy period. It's like saying it's fine to
| create a Xitter account these days as long as you stay
| away from politics.
| baggachipz wrote:
| The developers of the platform are tankies, but instances
| other than lemmy.ml and Hexbear are more normal. Left-
| leaning, yes, but I also unsub from politics communities
| and have a block list of a few words (you can probably
| assume what those are) to prevent those things from
| getting through.
| pumnikol wrote:
| I hardly noticed, and I've been on Lemmy for nearly two
| years. I think it depends on which instance you sign on
| to. But a) you can filter out certain topics, users and
| even entire instances from your feed, and b) you can
| always sign up to a different instance if you still feel
| annoyed for whatever reason. For example, I left
| lemmy.world when it turned into some sort of Reddit
| clone.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I was part of the Digg-to-Reddit migration 15 years ago or
| whatever, and now i don't even remember what Digg did to piss
| us all off.
| phailhaus wrote:
| They got rid of downvoting, which caused everyone's feed to
| devolve into garbage really fast.
| dartos wrote:
| > that tech has gotten to a point where user hostile moves
| don't have as much of an impact anymore
|
| It's because the small dozens of us that care about the freedom
| that the small internet afforded vs algorithmic content
| discovery is now the minority and no big platform cares about
| us.
|
| In the early days of the internet, they had to care. They had
| to convince people to leave their beloved forums and IRCs and
| move to Facebook or Reddit.
|
| Internet users were fairly niche and fickle. Now everyone uses
| the internet and most people don't care about their own
| freedoms wrt how they interact with technology.
| juujian wrote:
| Yeah, now everyone and their mom is on the internet. And
| their mom probably more then they are.
| wdr1 wrote:
| time for us all to go back to gopher
| jghn wrote:
| > It's because the small dozens of us that care about the
| freedom that the small internet afforded vs algorithmic
| content discovery is now the minority and no big platform
| cares about us.
|
| This. I see people whine all the time about being subjugated
| to The Algorithm on these sites. On many sites there are easy
| workarounds to avoid The Algorithm altogether. But when this
| is pointed out they come up with some reason why they hate
| interacting with things that way.
|
| In other words most people very much do want An Algorithm.
| They just might not want The Algorithm.
| dartos wrote:
| "The Alogrithm" is just another idea being propagated by an
| algorithm anyway.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Every time someone complains about ThE aLgOrItHm as a
| YouTube viewer(*) I remind them that the Subscriptions feed
| exists and continues to work.
|
| (*) YouTube creators, though, have to have a firm knowledge
| of it because at this point for many of them less than 10%
| of their views come through subscriptions.
| jghn wrote:
| Yep.
|
| Unless I'm using search functionality, if I don't have a
| mechanism to view only accounts I already predesignated
| *and* the ability to sort chronologically: I almost never
| use that site. As much as people whine about algorithmic
| content, people don't seem to agree with my methodologies
| either.
| deathlight wrote:
| You don't even need an account, you can use an RSS reader
| on channel pages. I think that's how newpipe populates
| its feed.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| At least reddit still maintains old.reddit. Digg never gave
| users the choice. If there is ever only new reddit, then there
| won't be reddit for me.
| ethagnawl wrote:
| Please don't remind them that it still works.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I know you're joking, but I'd love to know their take on
| it. I assume they're viewing the logs and cursing all of us
| forcing them to keep maintaining old.
| jghn wrote:
| I always assumed that the new reddit UI was more for app
| based usage than browser. And there is/was a hope to
| steer more people towards using the app.
|
| I also assume they are smart enough to realize that some
| people will simply never use the app. In which case
| they're not realizing as much benefit from forcing the
| new UI on them. Sure, there's a cost to maintain the old
| one. But as long as things aren't breaking it's easier to
| keep it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I've always assumed there's some PM sitting there at
| Reddit, watching the usage metrics every month, and as
| soon as it dips below his threshold, he'll order it shut
| down. "Should we tell 1 out of 1000 users to fuck off, or
| 1 out of 100 users?"
| aaronbaugher wrote:
| I had to find a browser plugin that automatically converts
| reddit links to old.reddit, for times when I'm researching
| something at work and land on a reddit link. The new system
| seems aggressively designed to keep you from reading the
| content.
| gazook89 wrote:
| You've already got your solution but just wanted to mention
| that Kagi search gives this option, if that's useful for
| someone.
| adzm wrote:
| Same, I've tried to get used to the 'new' format multiple
| times, but it's incredibly frustrating
| paradox460 wrote:
| Sort of. Reddit killed the old mobile site, which I built to
| run over 3G on a 533MHz CPU with 512Mb of RAM
|
| The new mobile website is at least an order of magnitude
| heavier than the old one
|
| There are some old screenshots of it, I've got one of them in
| my blog here: https://pdx.su/blog/2023-04-06-rip-reddit-
| compact/
| vekatimest wrote:
| I loved i.reddit, and really miss sites that were actually
| optimized for performance and low-end devices. It being
| removed kind of felt like a final nail in the coffin for
| that whole era. I think HTML Gmail was killed around that
| time too.
| SirMaster wrote:
| I care to some extent. But both old.reddit.com still works just
| fine and 3rd party apps when using my personal API key still
| work. I am still using Apollo on iOS and it's still working
| just fine for me.
|
| As long as these 2 things work I'll likely still continue using
| it.
|
| So I care to the point that if I can get them to work then I
| will stick around, but when I can't then I'll leave.
| liotier wrote:
| old.reddit is nice but it feels like having a conversation
| while on death row - still a couple of appeals pending but
| the endgame is not really in doubt.
|
| The end of RedditIsFun
| (https://www.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/) was the end of my
| Reddit era - I'm still on r/askHistorians, r/askScience and a
| couple of niche leftovers, but I stopped moderating - the
| interests of the platform and its users have obviously
| diverged.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| Not to mention, moderation tools are spread over the old
| site, the new site, and the mobile site in completely
| incongruous ways.
|
| I'm sure there are tools I'm not even aware of as a mod,
| because I'm not interested in digging into two additional
| interfaces, when most of what I need to do is "remove
| post", and "ban user from subreddit".
| SirMaster wrote:
| I'm a mod and I mainly use the mod interface in the
| Apollo app that I still use.
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| I moderate exclusively on Old Reddit with the Moderator
| Toolbox extension, I can't imagine doing it any other
| way.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| I wouldn't say old. is fine. It's all I use, but there are
| big flaws: some posts just aren't viewable and you'll end up
| on new. if you're not careful.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| There are extensions to force you onto old and improve the
| UI.
| SirMaster wrote:
| It seems to be OK for me, but I am using
| https://redditenhancementsuite.com/
|
| So maybe that makes a difference. I think it forces the old
| interface. Like my URL isn't even old.reddit, but all I see
| is the old interface. Or maybe I don't use subs with newer
| posts types that are not compatible with old?
| hasbot wrote:
| Seems fine to me. Been a heavy user before and after the
| reskin and the only thing I've noticed missing is polls.
| robotguy wrote:
| Same here, but I'm still using (glances left, glances right)
| Alien Blue on iOS (Shhhh...). I have NEVER seen an ad on
| mobile Reddit. Someday they'll do something so that it stops
| working and I'll be off Reddit.
| eek2121 wrote:
| Apollo was disabled by the developer. It now shows a thank
| you screen and stuff. There is no way you could be using it.
| rudolftheone wrote:
| You can still use it though, but it's not entirely
| straightforward: you need to sideload it, see
| https://www.reddit.com/r/apollosideloaded/
| SirMaster wrote:
| Yes you can still use modified versions that allow using
| your own personal api keys. The reddit api has not changed
| and a personal api key is free and has something like 1000
| hits a day which is plenty even for a heavy user.
|
| https://github.com/Balackburn/Apollo
| Peanuts99 wrote:
| Funnily my Boost for Reddit app also using a personal API key
| has stopped working today. Hopefully I'll be able to fix it
| but it'll be pretty sad if not.
| emacsen wrote:
| This is interesting, what do you mean by hostile user
| practices? Can you say more (about both /. and Digg)?
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >But it seems like nobody really cares.
|
| Reddit is referred to by most of it's users as an _app_.
|
| That should tell you everything you need to know.
| donatj wrote:
| What did it do that was particularly "user hostile"?
|
| My memory of the event was that they just launched a redesign
| that was half baked and everyone bailed overnight.
|
| I've always thought that was why old.reddit.com still exists,
| paranoia about the same thing happening
| Jordan-117 wrote:
| They fundamentally broke how the site worked:
|
| - they removed downvoting ("burying")
|
| - they took down the various "Upcoming" pages that allowed
| users to vet and weigh in on rising stories before they hit
| the front page
|
| - they replaced the unified home page with algorithmic
| recommendations (and the algo was garbo)
|
| - they introduced automated publisher accounts that
| circulated posts from official sources, crowding out organic
| submissions
|
| - they deleted users' previously saved posts
|
| - they largely deleted all posts, comments, vote counts older
| than a few months
|
| - they broke the RSS feeds and third-party tools
|
| All the above pissed off power users, and the rest were
| repelled by the nosedive in quality, the constant bugginess,
| and some terrible design choices (tiny light-blue-on-white
| text boxes, all usernames converted to lower case, impossible
| to view all comments, etc.)
| phailhaus wrote:
| That's because Digg's changes fundamentally changed how users
| interact with the site and receive content. From an article at
| the time:
|
| > Protesting at the removal of the upcoming news page, the
| default setting of "My News", deleted favourites, the apparent
| front page domination of a handful of publishers, and the
| removal of the "bury" button (for voting down stories), Digg
| users flooded the front page with links to rival aggregators
| and pleaded with chief executive Kevin Rose to turn back the
| clock.
|
| The quality of the content itself dropped off a cliff because
| of systemic changes. By contrast, Reddit's redesign was a
| reskin. Lots of people hate it, but Reddit is fundamentally
| still the same.
|
| Source:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/pda/2010/aug/31/digg-...
| nailer wrote:
| Killing third party apps makes the site unusable. Some
| embedded videos don't have sound, you now have to click the
| link to the third party site to be able to hear a video.
|
| Meanwhile, moderation has gone insane - I've had an account
| banned for saying 'Hamas must be destroyed' and another
| banned for merely explaining JK Rowlings position on
| transgender matters - not even offering my own. Reddit is
| very, very far left of the mainstream whose advertisers it is
| seeking to woo.
| eek2121 wrote:
| There are still 3rd party apps. One for iOS is called
| Hydra, which looks and works similarly to Apollo.
| whateveracct wrote:
| Reddit is perfectly usable in iOS Safari
| lovich wrote:
| The moderation is hyper partisan on all sides. Not just the
| left.
|
| I've had accounts banned along the the entire ecosystem of
| libertarians solely for the audacity of asserting that
| there were people who described themselves as socialist
| libertarians, and not declaring that there were five lights
| and that the philosophy did not exist.
|
| The admins don't care unless it hurts advertising dollars.
| Reddits leadership has been very consistent on this
| practice ever since the early days like with u/violentacrez
| and the jailbait subreddit
| castlecrasher2 wrote:
| >The moderation is hyper partisan on all sides. Not just
| the left.
|
| It is absolutely just the left. The right-leaning spaces,
| even /r/conservative, do not ban for "wrongthink" unless
| it is accompanied with obvious contempt or hostility.
| Conversely, you'll be banned from a number of subreddits
| simply for posting in /r/conservative or other labeled-
| right-leaning subreddits.
| Gunax wrote:
| Well _I_ am banned from /r/libertarian for wrong think.
| I didn't know about other subreddits though.
| outer_web wrote:
| 90% of /r/conservative's posts only allow flaired users
| (verified conservatives). There is an ongoing foodfight
| about verified users expressing neocon ideas like
| supporting Ukraine.
|
| I don't have any recent information on pre-emptive bans,
| but years ago /r/conservative had a particular mod (I
| won't name) who did just that.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Go on to Truth Social and post "f*ck Trump" and see how
| long until you're banned.
|
| Do the same on Twitter (or call someone cisgender) and
| see how long until you're banned.
|
| (Spoiler alert - I have done both and have been banned as
| a result)
| nailer wrote:
| I think the point is we don't want Reddit to become
| hyper-partisan like truth or bluesky.
| techpineapple wrote:
| Ok, look liberals can be bad in building echo chambers,
| fine, but literally like 3 days ago on /r/conservative
| there was a post asking if it was ok to disagree with the
| mainstream of /r/conservative because so many
| conservative posts were getting removed. A casual reading
| of /r/conservative shows like 100s of deleted comments on
| every thread.
|
| And don't get me wrong, I'm sure they have a huge
| brigading problem, again it's not limited to
| /r/conservative, but /r/conservative is a laughable
| example. /r/Republican and /r/Trump are better examples
| even.
| hasbot wrote:
| /r/conservative absolutely bans people that make too many
| anti-conservative comments.
| phailhaus wrote:
| Reddit doesn't control subreddit mods, and some videos not
| having sound does not make the site "unusable". That's why
| it's still so successful.
| nailer wrote:
| Yes, that is the problem. The mods they have are far
| outside the political norm, which does not match their
| attempts to seek mainstream advertisers, which limits the
| success of the site and provides an entry point for a
| decent competitor.
|
| Reddit has a large amount of video based subreddits.
| Videos, if you haven't seen them before, are a mix of
| moving pictures and audio. When the audio doesn't work,
| it does in fact make many videos unusable.
| ryandrake wrote:
| On the other hand, I remember Fark pretty much dying after
| they forced an unwanted reskin on their users. The "You'll
| Get Over It"[1] hubris from their admin was probably the
| start of their downfall.
|
| 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9823324
| outer_web wrote:
| Also the Gawker sites did the same, concurrent with their
| other mishaps.
| jghn wrote:
| > But it seems like nobody really cares.
|
| Speaking for myself it's because old.reddit is still available.
| I loathe the new reddit after all this time. If they nuke old
| reddit my usage would go down quite a bit.
| ta1243 wrote:
| > Just like slashdot before digg.
|
| Fuck Beta
| BeetleB wrote:
| I think Slashdot's major changes came after Digg had "died".
| righthand wrote:
| Yes it is for me too. I even went so far to downrank reddit
| links in Kagi. Most of the time Reddit links require using old
| theme or turning off my vpn. So it's not worth ranking them
| higher.
| paradox460 wrote:
| Fwiw you can make kagi rewrite all reddit links to old
| QuantumGood wrote:
| It had a huge impact on Reddit, but it's akin to an oil tanker:
| Dropping a huge anchor doesn't slow it down much visibly.
| dehrmann wrote:
| The rise of TikTok makes me think people might not consciously
| care, but they'll vote with their eyeballs if someone comes
| along with a better experience.
| karaterobot wrote:
| People don't care, that's true. Most people just want to see
| funny memes and videos, they don't think too hard about it. Not
| saying that's good, in fact I'd say the opposite.
|
| Here we are on HN, which is not, itself, user hostile. And
| there's Metafilter, which is still hanging in there, a bastion
| of the old internet.
|
| But I get the sense that many have retreated off the open
| internet, into private communities. I've been running one for 7
| years or so. Safer there, and you can actually have
| conversations with people. In a way, this is the digital
| equivalent of how the real world works: the thing which _isn
| 't_ natural is trying to talk to people across a massive crowd,
| while other people shout advertisements at you, and still
| others record everything you say.
|
| These bigger link aggregators like Reddit have become a way to
| see new links, grab them in a net, and run back to the private
| community to discuss them.
| newsclues wrote:
| Only a small fraction of users are content creators (at least
| successfully).
|
| We may have reached the point where there is a critical mass of
| paid professional content creators rather than amateur creators
| who will be more likely to leave for new platforms. The
| professionals stick around on platforms because they have
| fans/viewers who are profitable.
| bena wrote:
| Slashdot was always more IT focused. Digg and reddit were more
| general appeal.
|
| And as a larger portion of the online audience became "non-IT-
| related" people, Slashdot mattered less and less.
|
| Although, I've always liked Slashdot's moderation system. Users
| who have been well moderated in the past were randomly selected
| to moderate pages. And scores were capped so you didn't have
| snowball effects where if something started getting negative
| traction, it would get buried.
|
| It was harder to game because populism didn't work and there
| were no moderators to complain to. I never had to worry if
| marking something a "Troll" would cause me to get bombed with
| messages. The user would never know who did it.
| ElCapitanMarkla wrote:
| > But it seems like nobody really cares.
|
| I think enough people cared. I end up back on reddit from time
| to time but it's nothing like it was before the big 3rd party
| app debacle.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > _Reddit pushing new Reddit layout and killing 3rd party apps
| is what did it for me. But it seems like nobody really cares._
|
| It's not that _users_ don 't care, it's that the money dried
| up.
|
| It used to be that when a site suffered enshittification, a new
| batch of VCs would show up to fund some clean and functional
| competitor. Then after the IPO or sale, the former "upstart"
| quickly becomes the incumbent and shitifies itself.
|
| Nobody's investing in a de-shittified reddit or most social
| media companies.
|
| The only exception seems to be bsky, right now a VC funded
| deshittified twitter with massive growth. But they got a huge
| boost from Jack Dorsey early on - I doubt they would've gotten
| off the ground without the tech and financial resources he
| brought in day one. This Digg play seems to sort of be in that
| same vein, despite the old brand.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| https://archive.ph/2025.03.05-123859/https://www.nytimes.com...
| TomMasz wrote:
| The Digg of (literally) yesterday was not the Digg that shot
| itself in the foot. It was just a site that posted links to
| various things you could find in other places. Not sure what
| they're planning but I can't help feeling the ol' ship has sailed
| on Digg as any kind of community site.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| Just for posterity sake I'd like to point out that the Digg of
| yesterday also shot themselves in the foot when they chose
| (allegedly) to copy all of their content from DamnInteresting
| [1].
|
| Once they got themselves called out they stopped sharing that
| content and, consequently, the quality of the site went back
| down. Until yesterday they lived off Reddit polls, advice
| columns, and Twitter controversies.
|
| Source: I check the website about once a week.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39046023
| TomMasz wrote:
| I noticed the content change, but missed the reason behind
| it.
| roger_ wrote:
| I really hope they:
|
| 1) have a solution for spam (both blatant and subtle)
|
| 2) actively support their moderators
|
| 3) have well thought out and consistently enforced policies.
|
| Reddit lost all of my goodwill years ago because of this.
| dartos wrote:
| The issue is that none of that drives engagement.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| They'll have none. Digg was taken over by power-users IIRC and
| that's why everyone left. As for the spam and policies, I don't
| expect any change.
| flkiwi wrote:
| Given Kevin Rose's web3 turn, I don't have high hopes.
| criddell wrote:
| I think he's pretty much done with cryptocurrency stuff and has
| moved on to health and AI (separately).
| flkiwi wrote:
| I was less focused on his NFT/crypto phase as on his
| faddishness. He just sort of grabs after whatever is in the
| headlines.
| paradox460 wrote:
| I mean, he always has. Let's not forget that diggs grew the
| way it did because he talked about it on TechTV (rip)
| flkiwi wrote:
| I found myself watching an episode of diggnation a couple
| of months ago. It wasn't as funny as I remember, but,
| man, those were simpler times.
| nailer wrote:
| If I make a post that gets 100K likes, please give me some of
| the ad revenue.
| jdlyga wrote:
| the web3 bros moved on to ai agents
| nailer wrote:
| That's just the scammers. The people building financial
| products never left.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I was there Gandalf, I was there 3,000 years ago.
|
| Gotta Digg. "Did you hear that awful sound. Oh! Another Server's
| Down."
| danso wrote:
| Dang I thought this was going to be a throwback (2013) article
| about Digg's post-v4 relaunch [0] by Betaworks.
|
| > _The new Digg has little in common with the old site: it has
| big photos instead of tiny text, does not allow for comments, and
| most importantly, it depends on human editors in addition to an
| algorithm that weighs user voting. So far, people seem to like
| it. A new survey, this time with 2,600 users, showed that 81
| percent would recommend the new Digg to a friend._
|
| One thing I remember about this phase was how good the headlines
| were, they must have paid a decent sum for human editors.
|
| [0] https://www.theverge.com/2013/2/4/3950596/diggs-traffic-
| rebo...
| almosthere wrote:
| I "liked" the new digg after it was purchased because someone
| took up the mantle, but I expected it to grow into the features
| it was missing, even perhaps have a new diggnation podcast
| behind it. But it basically just sat still, hoping to just ride
| the domain name. It also went extreme woke since I believe the
| human editors were hired that way.
| lmm wrote:
| So are they going to avoid the negative changes that Reddit made?
| Since they're saying the new Digg is going to be explicitly aimed
| at mobile users, sounds like no?
| angry_moose wrote:
| Oh damnit. I actually like current Digg. Doesn't nearly have the
| reach it used to, but its definitely in my "scan once a day list"
| for a couple interesting articles.
|
| > Digg founder Kevin Rose has teamed up with former rival Alexis
| Ohanian to buy the once-popular content aggregator as they bet on
| an artificial intelligence-powered revival of the platform that
| once drew around 40 million monthly visitors.
|
| Sounds way worse.
|
| Edit: And, "Current Digg" is apparently down now.
| rideontime wrote:
| Like a lot of guys who haven't had a hit since the dotcom boom,
| he seems to have spent the past decade jumping on whatever
| bandwagon. He went big into crypto, too.
| https://www.coingecko.com/en/nft/moonbirds
| dehrmann wrote:
| Another pattern I've seen is people recycling their old
| ideas, but with a twist that's the latest trend.
| DustinBrett wrote:
| We need it, Reddit has become terrible.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Yeah but old Digg wasn't as good as Reddit in its heyday.
|
| It definitely feels like the internet peaked like 5-10 years
| ago. Reddit was good, Stackoverflow was tolerable, I didn't use
| Twitter but I guess that was better too.
| y-c-o-m-b wrote:
| By my rough estimate/experience, late 2018 is when
| enshittification began to really seep into everything both
| online and offline. Covid was the final nail in the coffin.
| mike_hock wrote:
| A Reddit exodus to Digg would truly be ironic.
| superultra wrote:
| I'm a user of the original Digg (and many of its iterations,
| including plastic.com).
|
| This whole approach seems tone deaf:
|
| > A.I. will also play a larger part in making Digg more
| accessible to users, Mr. Rose said. For instance, he said, a
| community of science-fiction enthusiasts could have their
| discussions translated into Klingon, the language used by the
| "Star Trek" alien race of the same name. A.I. tools can also help
| reduce spam, misinformation and harassment, he said."
|
| Like nearly everything these days, this sounds like they raised
| money based almost solely on the premise that "AI will fix
| everything." They don't seem to understand that humans doing
| things is what makes all of this interesting to humans. I
| remember a BBS door that translated english to klingon. It was
| cool then because someone built it, but the fun was always doing
| it ourselves.
|
| And is there any precedent for AI moderation at scale? It's
| another example of a LLM wrapper with no moat.
|
| Finally, the attention to moderators seems like a swing at
| Reddit. But are there people dumb enough to fall for that trick
| again (don't answer that lol)?
|
| At some point we need to realize that these VC driven "ideas" are
| all just content honeypots for AI training and do our own thing.
| basisword wrote:
| They kind of took that quote out of context. In another article
| he begins the quote with something like "I'm completely making
| this up but imagine...". It wasn't completely serious. His real
| example was more around using AI to help moderators so they are
| focussed less on grunt work and more on community. Sounds
| sensible. In reality though I think he just thought it would be
| fun to give Digg another shot - and why not?
| Stevvo wrote:
| I missed Diggnation, it was the first podcast I listed to. Happy
| to find it has already been revived; https://www.diggnation.show/
| doix wrote:
| Yeah, it was my first podcast too. I'm pretty sure it's part of
| the reason I went into tech, had a pretty big influence on my
| life. Kevin mentioned trying to buy back digg on the podcast, I
| couldn't tell if it was a serious comment or not. Looks like it
| was.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Just to be clear, digg started uncapitalized. I still miss the
| small d. It was more humble.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| its a trap!!!!!!
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| It's funny because Reddit basically owes Digg everything.
|
| The history is often overlooked: when digg fumbled/shot itself in
| the foot, Reddit was in the right-place-at-the-right-time and got
| lucky by the mass exodus looking for somewhere to go. Reddit
| itself was failing fast and on its last legs at the time held
| afloat by its core users and that's it. They didn't know what
| they were going to do and rather than being visionaries in any
| way really they got lucky hosting everyone with a slew of very
| standard web 2.0 features. It is/was nothing special. It has been
| riding the wave ever since (and also why I see no reason to give
| people like Alexis Ohanian any praise or credibility when he's
| out there talking about all kinds of nonsense, but I digress).
| And as with any social site, it's the userbase/community that
| pulls it thru darkness to the where it is now.
| sylens wrote:
| Digg v4 was a huge deal in how badly it was designed and rolled
| out
| josefresco wrote:
| V4 was the _final_ death blow. But the Google Panda algorithm
| update (and vote manipulation) set the stage.
| paradox460 wrote:
| For what it's worth, reddit is only 6 months younger than
| diggs, and both were developed in tandem.
|
| Prior to the Diggv4 debacle, there was already a sense that
| reddit was "better" than digg in important areas. Digg had
| problems with power users, and reddit was able to pitch itself
| as being immune to them (lol). Comment sections on reddit in
| this period tended to have better content than digg, and
| subreddits were a meaningful way to curate your content,
| something digg lacked.
|
| A common feeling of the era was that digg looked better, but
| reddit had better content. Less, but better
| drooopy wrote:
| I just realized that Diggnation is also back.
| peter422 wrote:
| It is very funny that the article highlights these two guys
| saving Digg, and they both care so deeply about it that they are
| going to... sit on the board and keep their day jobs.
|
| They won't go all-in on the idea and expect that we'll all be
| super excited by it. Just shows how out of touch VCs can get.
| righthand wrote:
| Kevin Rose especially out of touch, but mostly because he
| spends his time hyping his own ideas and if they don't work he
| steps out until the next idea comes around.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| They'll never get back what it once was. Things are different
| now. Rose is ... different also.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Metacomment: There are 100 comments here. Only 2 on the NY Times.
| That's a huge difference.
|
| Of course only paid subscribers can comment. Maybe that's the
| root of difference.
| picafrost wrote:
| As one platform chases profits and loses its soul, another
| resurrects to welcome the nostalgic refugees. The eternal cycle
| of digital migration continues.
| permo-w wrote:
| does it though? do you really expect this to be a success?
| people will just stay on reddit like they always do. twitter
| has been taken over by one of the most hated people in the
| world and they appear to be doing better than ever user-wise
| basisword wrote:
| I think current Reddit is very different from what Digg was.
| Reddit is too much user generated content (i.e. the exact
| same AskReddit questions asked on a weekly basis) and not
| enough cool links/videos anymore. At least on the non-logged
| in homepage. If Digg is exclusively links, it'll definitely
| have a place imo.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| They need AI to ensure _only_ MrBabyMan 's posts reach the front
| page. Human curation wasn't 100% effective.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Ahh the nostalgia: https://youtu.be/W1_YoG7lqI4
| nntwozz wrote:
| Ooof yeah that hits hard.
|
| At the end of the video they mention del.icio.us, another blast
| from the past.
| ed wrote:
| Kind of crazy Kevin wasn't required to mention it was his
| project!
| dehrmann wrote:
| Remember the Businessweek cover?
| bityard wrote:
| Back in the day, my top three websites I would visit were: 1)
| Slashdot 2) Digg 3) Reddit
|
| At the time, Reddit was extremely small and looked a lot like
| Hacker News does now, except that the content was about 1/3 nerd-
| related, 1/3 mainstream news, and 1/3 was people's experiences
| and questions about recreational drugs. (Which I was not and am
| not into.) I'm not sure if there were even subreddits at that
| point.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| At the very beginning there weren't subreddits. When they
| introduced subreddits they put all previous posts under
| /r/reddit.com.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
|
| Anyone else remember?
| qingcharles wrote:
| The MPAA remembers.
| mike_hock wrote:
| CSS?
| vekatimest wrote:
| AACS.
| scottrogers86 wrote:
| Had a feeling something was brewing here with the relaunch of
| Diggnation. Welcome back!
| dusted wrote:
| Anyone remember fazed.org (slogan: until the weekend heals us) ?
| Absolutely loved that site, in a way, it was similar to hn in
| design and "random interesting stuff" type of content.. For me,
| what killed it was the now long dead "stumple upon" (well, maybe
| not dead, but they did something years ago to make it suck more)
| jaredcwhite wrote:
| Cue "It's a Trap!" meme.
|
| The future of online content sharing and discussion is
| decentralized, open source, and based on free protocols. We
| absolutely don't need another Reddit riding off of past Digg
| vibes. We need a fast ejection out of corporate silos and
| proprietary platforms!
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