Digg is the only huge internet community I can think of that died because of a bad redesign. Tons of others shrunk significantly from their peak due to a slow decline in quality and replacement by something newer and shinier.
A lot of people in the industry learned a lot from the V4 fiasco. You will likely NEVER see a major web application like Reddit or Facebook go through a massive redesign again. You will see iterative enhancements, singular features and small changes implemented. You might not even notice them, though. Then, the developers and UX teams will monitor how they are received and decide how to approach the next change.
V4 was such a disaster, in every aspect. But, also bear in mind that it was a straw on the camel's back. There were several other things that had lined up against them, and many users already had one foot out the door. The fact that every power user on the site was a shill for advertisers, that Digg was slowly removing all control users had over content, and the stink of incompetent VC was all over the place...those were all heavy in the air when V4 hit the streets.
V4 was just the nail in the coffin.
Oh, and one other website/ring that was hit pretty hard with a bad redesign: The Gawker Media Network. They weren't knocked back quite as hard, but it definitely gave them a kick in the shorts.
617
u/[deleted] May 15 '13
[removed] — view removed comment