Digg changed the design (to digg v4) and interface and alienated it's userbase (august 2010). After years of other poor decisions this broke the camels back.
Digg was then flooded with links to reddit.
Reddit was there and caught all the users that all looked for a new home to "migrate" to. After a month 30% digg users or so moved to reddit and the rest is history.
Let's see what happens when reddit tries to do a redesign ;)
Reddit has actually been slowly lurching towards revealing a redesign for the last couple of months. To be honest they seem almost too paranoid about not messing things up to the point where it feels like progress has been at a standstill for years. They’re doing a lot of previews [1], and getting a lot of feedback from users, but I still feel that the sort of power users who engage with a process like this might end up helping them design a Homer that blindsides a lot of people.
There needs to be an acceptable alternative for everyone to migrate to. The general public won't move to the likes of voat or imzy (which apparently already shut down).
