this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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Not The Onion

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[–] letsgo2themall@lemmy.world 4 points 1 hour ago

Digg? iwastheregandalf.jpg

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 29 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

The company, which is today back under the ownership of its original founder, Kevin Rose, along with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is launching its open beta to the public

Huh. I assumed Rose would still be behind stuff like this, but didn't expect Ohanian.

I'm a 'Digg refugee' that fled to Reddit around 2009, I think? I knew Digg from Rose, because I was watching Tech TV and The Screen Savers, around 2002.

Anyway I turned my back on Digg when Rose sold out and I'm also going to avoid his new attempt at money making with an AI thingy.

Digg is dead and is gonna stay dead to me. I don't want its rotting dug up reanimated corpse with a sticker saying "now powered by AI!"

EDIT: Coming to think about it, Tech TV turning into G4 might have been an early form of enshittificarion.

[–] vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 hours ago

That edit hits like a brick. I think about techtv a couple times a year. What an interesting convergence of old media and the first stages of new media.

[–] manmachine@lemmy.world 68 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Rhoeri@piefed.world 12 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah. Pretty much. Reddit should not be cloned. It’s a bad move.

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 32 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

Isn't Lemmy a reddit clone?

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 16 points 12 hours ago

Maybe an old.reddit.com clone.

But we've diverged pretty well since then.

[–] Rhoeri@piefed.world 11 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

Not really. There is far more they don’t share in common than they do.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 points 11 hours ago

I literally got banned from reddit 2 years ago, and searched "reddit clone". Found Lemmy, and here I am.

[–] BingBong@sh.itjust.works 10 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Federation means the fundamental infrastructure and dependencies are entirely different. Even if the interface may feel similar to you.

[–] rudyharrelson@lemmy.radio 14 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Even if the interface may feel similar to you.

I would say it's more than just the interface that makes Lemmy similar to Reddit. To end users, they are virtually identical services in terms of functionality. Link aggregators with built-in community forums. I think it's fair to call Lemmy a federated Reddit clone. Not to suggest Reddit invented any of the aforementioned features, just that Lemmy's implementation of said features is in many ways identical to Reddit's approach because it was meant to be a Reddit alternative for the fediverse.

Even the official Lemmy git repository compares the project to Reddit:

Lemmy is similar to sites like Reddit, Lobste.rs, or Hacker News: you subscribe to forums you're interested in, post links and discussions, then vote, and comment on them.

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 3 points 7 hours ago

Link aggregators are a medium, yeah. A social medium, even. Just because the underlying tech is different/better/more interesting etc, the basic user experience (as designed) is much the same.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 8 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

PieFed has features that even Reddit lacks, like combining together comments across all cross-posts (and plans to tweak that still further, like add the ability to a community to opt-out of it, though I find that it helps with community discovery).

[–] tal@lemmy.today 4 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Historically, Usenet clients tended to respond to both groups in response to articles posted to multiple newsgroups.

This tended to result in trolls doing things like posting "I'm in the market for a computer. Which is better, PC or Mac?" to comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy and comp.os.mac.advocacy with the intention of starting flamewars.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 2 points 2 hours ago

That exact flamewar will never not be funny!! 🤣 So sayeth we all. 🖥️💻

Bc the answer will always be Mac if money were of zero consideration, Linux if someone lives in the real world, and only use Windows if there is both a gun to your head at that moment and a very specific game that you wanted to play requires it, and even then try emulation first.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Well damn. That sounds.....very nice.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 2 points 2 hours ago

It is actually! It is one of the features that I love the most about it, it saves so many clicks, plus the interruption of the wait time, especially for those posts that appear in like 9 communities (which for some reason isn't nearly as rare as I might have expected, even though in those cases most communities will have like 0-1 comments, even if some others have >100).

That and maybe the the translation of all post links into relative ones on your local instance are perhaps my favorites of the recent additions. And the ability to read deleted posts instead of a page that looks more like a server error that doesn't even acknowledge that the post used to exist at some point in time. There's a lot to have to choose from!:-)

[–] halcyoncmdr@piefed.social 12 points 11 hours ago

Reddit was already the replacement everyone went to after they redesigned Digg in 2010 to focus on publishers and traffic fell 50% almost immediately. Digg had 40 million monthly visitors and a $160 Million valuation at the time.

https://www.startupbooted.com/what-happened-to-digg

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 22 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

No

They’re betting that AI can help to address some of the messiness and toxicity of today’s social media landscape. At the same time, social platforms will need a new set of tools to ensure they’re not taken over by AI bots posing as people.

“We obviously don’t want to force everyone down some kind of crazy KYC process,” said Rose in an interview with TechCrunch, referring to the “know your customer” verification process used by financial institutions to confirm someone’s identity.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 17 points 11 hours ago

"Ooooooo, a reddit competitor!"

"Digg betting AI can help"

"Swiiiiiiing and a miss!"

[–] Darkcoffee@sh.itjust.works 22 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

It has plenty of investment capital so don't fall for it, it'll get enshittified just like Reddit.

[–] Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org 33 points 12 hours ago

It's starting with AI. It's neck-deep in the shit already.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 9 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] dumbass@piefed.social 9 points 11 hours ago

Three times a lady!

[–] devolution@lemmy.world 10 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

I'll take Lemmy thank you. I like a non right wing infested space.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 5 points 11 hours ago

Piefed also exists, as does Mbin.

[–] SarahFromOz@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

Sign in with Google not working for me

[–] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 11 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Then don't sign in with Google.

[–] SarahFromOz@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago

LOL thanks for the tip.

I created an account manually. Now I can't create a community.

Digg doesn't allow nsfw anyway so now I am back here