Instead of humming along with 10 or so employees raking in cash hand-over fist, they tried to grow as fast and as large as possible to try to revolutionize news
Digg required the network effect to sustain their user base -- it was where it was at. It is presumptive hindsight to assume that a slow and steady approach would have yielded long term success. As likely it would have lost its newness (as many other sites came and went. Remember when a Slashdotting was pinnacle of torrential request targeting?) Digg took a big risk to try to cement their position, and it failed to do so. People blaming the v4 miss that Digg had seriously already lost its lustre at that point, the redesign serving primarily as a convenient scapegoat.
Digg required the network effect to sustain their user base -- it was where it was at. It is presumptive hindsight to assume that a slow and steady approach would have yielded long term success. As likely it would have lost its newness (as many other sites came and went. Remember when a Slashdotting was pinnacle of torrential request targeting?) Digg took a big risk to try to cement their position, and it failed to do so. People blaming the v4 miss that Digg had seriously already lost its lustre at that point, the redesign serving primarily as a convenient scapegoat.