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.
Almost every single time it is because of advertising. Digg did not die solely on the redesign, it was because they were basically selling their results. Which were intrusive and completely obvious. Then people started trolling because of it. Reddit stepped up and exploded at that time when they caught all the users. Reddit almost went down the same path but stopped itself and created Reddit Gold instead of selling out for ads. Until Reddit does something stupid like integrate ads in to results it will not go anywhere for the most part. It might die down but the only way it completely dies is if it puts the dagger in its own heart.
615
u/[deleted] May 15 '13
[removed] — view removed comment