David Pierce at the Verge : > If Digg does this right, the homepage will feel like Old Digg, and everything else might feel like Better Reddit.
The new Digg, Rose says, will include lots of AI-forward ways to sort through and make decisions on content.
The homepage of the internet is back? I am excited about this, Digg was the first RSS aggregator I used, and for a while was a very fun place to start when getting on the web. Additionally with Reddit’s decisions involving third-party apps and overall dissapointing decision making, I am happy to see a new player in the game. Additionally the people involved in bringing Digg back are not just Kevin Rose the original founder but also Alexis Ohanian who founded Reddit and even Blogger and Twitter cofounder Ev Williams. This team has a bunch of experience, and has more than learned the lessons necessary to bring a site like this to life. However both ever the heavy lean into AI moderation, really makes me question is this different in a meaningful way?
When a larger portion of Twitter users went to Bluesky or Mastodon (or even to some extent Threads), it was based partially on a promise, to do things different this time, to lean into open standards and data portability. These new platforms usually get a shot at (to varying success) to try things differently and at least attempt to move forward in a more positive direction. But in terms of Digg coming back in a way that is more similar to Reddit and leans hard into AI, it gives me doubts that this is a substantial improvement that is needed or even desired.
The team isn’t shy about the comparison but thinks that by better engaging with the community, and without the growth-at-all-costs requirements of being a public company, they can build something that takes better care of its users.
From my knowledge on this (which is admittedly limited) there doesn’t seem to be anything foundationally different that stop them from moving in the direction of how Digg did originally, or to the place Reddit is today. I am happy to see more bodies competing in the space but it reminds me of when in Futurama they had presidential elections of two clones running against each other.
While I have my doubts, I still can’t help but be excited to see what they come up with. If nothing else it offers a chance to disrupt Reddit’s monopoly on this format and really lean into some old nostalgia. I can’t wait to try it out.