If memory serves, the primary driver of reduced traffic to Digg 4.0 was the fundamental shift in how their submission mechanism worked, not in a change to their layout. I recall some kind of promotion mechanism where superusers gained some amount of control over their "front page" equivalent.
Also, unlike Digg, Reddit hasn't been bleeding members to another site for some time now, so there's nowhere for Reddit users to go if they become dissatisfied. Does anyone have any ideas about why that is? Reddit is not, fundamentally, a hard product to emulate, and yet I know of no site even remotely as popular nowadays (HN aside, of course). Slashdot, Fark, and sites like those all seem to have mostly been consumed by Reddit. Is it the strong network effects that Reddit has, or does Reddit's moderation system provide a unique way of hosting a community that no one has reproduced?
There was post on here awhile ago from an engineer working at digg during the v4 launch that was pretty interesting. https://lethain.com/digg-v4/
I think Discord has been siphoning off some of the users on the gaming related subreddits, but it fundamentally serves a different purpose so its not a wholesale replacement.
Network effect is one for sure. I'm not a fan of the redesign (and submitted my thoughts several times), but the content is there, and it's a reasonable platform overall.
Also, unlike Digg, Reddit hasn't been bleeding members to another site for some time now, so there's nowhere for Reddit users to go if they become dissatisfied. Does anyone have any ideas about why that is? Reddit is not, fundamentally, a hard product to emulate, and yet I know of no site even remotely as popular nowadays (HN aside, of course). Slashdot, Fark, and sites like those all seem to have mostly been consumed by Reddit. Is it the strong network effects that Reddit has, or does Reddit's moderation system provide a unique way of hosting a community that no one has reproduced?