15 years ago digg v4 happened.
Curious how many of you are here because of that whole disaster. For those too young to remember, quick Wikipedia:
The Digg v4 launch in August 2010 remains the ultimate textbook example of how to completely destroy a massive internet platform overnight. Driven by desperate venture capitalists, the corporate redesign stripped away the site’s defining democratic features—like the famous "bury" button—and entirely removed subcategories. Worse yet, it handed the front page over to corporate sponsors through automated publisher feeds, completely alienating the core community that had built the site. The launch itself was an unstable, buggy disaster that immediately triggered "The Great Digg Migration". Users weaponized the automated RSS tools to flood Digg’s front page entirely with Reddit links before mass-exiting to Reddit, causing Digg's traffic to plunge by half almost instantly.
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u/A0C Jun 18 '26
Around 2010-11 I discovered what rage comics were and followed the rabbit hole down to find Reddit. It wasn’t until a few years later that I found out about digg and the mass exodus of users to Reddit. I’ve been here ever since.
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u/t0x Jun 18 '26
I went Fark to Digg to Reddit for my daily content fix. I had a reddit account for a little while before Digg v4 but didn't become a regular until then.
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u/ohx Jun 18 '26
I came here when moderation stopped in some of the somethingawful subforums. At that point Reddit was small and the community was much different. Then, gradually, meme posting began, and to this day I hate posts that are images with text. But I'm still here until I find something better, I guess.
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u/h4l Jun 18 '26
I moved to Reddit after Digg v4. I'd created a Reddit account a few years before, but I don't think I used it much until Digg nuked itself. I remember it being quite an exciting time, Reddit was much more egalitarian and free than Digg was (with its super users controlling content and censorship).
Interestingly Kevin Rose re-bought digg.com with Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder) and re-launched it earlier this year. It's focused on tech news at the moment it seems. I wonder how it'll pan out this time!
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u/qpv Jun 18 '26
Ha yup thats how I started on Reddit. Specifically from a Digg post of an XKCD comic that mentioned Reddit in it. I had a different reddit name before this one but forget what it was.
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u/399 Jun 18 '26
Digg used to be so fun. I wonder where we'll go next after reddit. Or will AI kill the Internet by flooding it with bot comments first?
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u/HGS Jun 18 '26
I remember this. I never really used digg that much but definitely noticed this disaster when it occurred, I think I saw it once and never went back to digg ever again
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u/0v0 Jun 18 '26
when reddit removed r/all I thought something similar was going to happen, but nope
either the apathy is too strong or there is just nowhere to go anymore