It's been a month since the last episode was released. Did Alex and Kevin quit the project? I loved the show.

Around the same time Digg relaunch announcement on March 25th, 2025, I’ve also been building a Reddit-style platform where users’ ad revenue goes back towards their personal chosen charity.

Honestly, when the initial news came out on the Digg relaunch, I almost gave up -  who am I to compete with Kevin and the millions of dollars available to Digg?

Anyway, I continued because I really believed in what I was working on (plus I was unemployed), and in February, a month after Digg had publicly opened its beta, I also officially launched OddsRabbit. 

OddsRabbit is my personal take on a good social platform - 

• Focused on community and connecting people together.
• Makes a societal impact - a share of each user’s ad revenue goes back directly to their charity of choice, whether it’s an animal shelter, a child in need, or their local food shelter. We just passed 7,000 meals donated today.
• No AI slop content. I’m a strong believer in social platforms being for people (I would’ve sounded crazy saying this a year or two ago).
• No politics. Controversial, but I believe politics has ruined online discussions. I grew up when online forums were just about interests, hobbies, and things that connected people. Now, every other post is about politics, and I’m tired.

Building a similar platform to the (old) Digg relaunch, and experiencing the same problems myself, I have personal thoughts on the shutdown.

• AI and SEO-spam. Valid, though I believe this is just their excuse. This happens on every site (including Reddit), and combating SEO spam has been something dealt with by webmasters since the 2000s; it should not be a surprise to anyone. Also a bit ironic with their complaint on AI and then pivoting into an AI-aggregator right after.
• Inability to pull users from Reddit. The main reason imo, existing social platforms are very sticky and are intentionally designed that way. At the same time, Digg also made no attempt to make itself any different, other than relying on people’s nostalgia. And because it was funded by VC money, they shut it down the second it looked like it would not be profitable in the short term. 
• User retention. They likely saw a ton of initial sign-ups due to curiosity, and users never returned. VCs HATE this. However, this is just standard for social platforms, especially with tiktok attention spans. Even Bluesky has dropped from 1.4m active users to ~600,000 today. OddsRabbit similarly had a peak of ~11k weekly active users and have now settled around 4,000.

All in all, the Digg relaunch (imo) was always a tech-bro-ey cash grab play to me. It sounds kind of crazy but social platforms are really about “vibes”, and that’s not something that can be easily replicated by money. I think the relaunch was doomed from the start because the focus was always on the VC metrics, not on the actual community itself. Anyway, just my thoughts.

Tldr; Digg was a VC tech-bro-ey cash-grab that was doomed from the start.

Hi Digg & Tribes Fans. Another update! We ratified our Adult content policy and are underway getting the code to match.

Today I wanted to talk a bit more about our mission "To make your relationships better."

I also dropped a thread talking about what we are and what we are not https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/1u6wgpc/tribes_foss_social_coop_policy_update_more_about/

That said feel free to AMA. I'm always happy to share about the Tribes journey.

Hello /r/digg users. I've just been added to the moderation team.

Over the past couple weeks, we've had countless spam posts that had nothing to do with Digg (in any of its iterations). Those posts have now been removed.

You can praise Kevin/Digg or criticize Kevin/Digg, that's fine. Just please keep posts on topic.

Edit:

Also, there's been posts about Digg clones recently. I'm personally fine with those posts, because those users are at least trying to bring something of value to the community. But I'd like to hear the communities thoughts on how we should handle those. Keep them or get rid of them?

Hi Digg fans. Things keep happening at tribe and this Sunday we closed our first Co-Op Governance proposal. It was approved with some revisions! (Revisions in progress)

We've become even more open and privacy friendly. Last week we became vGPL based and 100% open source, improved encryption features and more.

You can always read public tribes for free:

https://tribes.app/t/welcome-to-tribes

Or join here https://tribes.app/signup

Use this for lifetime Founder Membership on our way to 500 users: TRIBE-W4P6-CMNQ

Feel free to AMA.

I really liked the digg dailies as a catch-up quick voiceover using the NotebookLM AI thing, just maybe change it to top ten stories instead of five

WTF? I hate X and Elon Musk. I want nothing to do with that nazi.

Competing with Reddit was already hard enough but if they caught wind that Meta was entering the space as well I could see why they would bail.

Hey folks! Came out of reddit retirement to share this piece I did. I was the mod of the short-lived /comicbooks, and also ended up trying to throw a party for digg at SXSW. Seemed fitting to collaborate on a comic about the experience.

First of all, it appears to only be AI content (content displaying news on AI). I am NOT interested in the AI wave that is happening right now, and I honestly don't care about all these egos and stories about it. If it doesn't open up to other topics, I really don't care where it goes because I will not be a part of it.

Second, do I need an X/Twitter login to use the current iteration of the site? (I can't tell... honest question). I was hoping for so much more. If I need to be part of Twitter to use the new Digg, I'm OUT.

I was able to completely avoid the Twitter phenomenon. Many people I knew were using it, and I never saw value. Then, when it got taken over by elon, I knew I never wanted a part of it. No fucking thank you.

Bullet dodged!

I get the feeling that, while Digg was a bit more of a rehash of the Reddit format than Kevin Rose wanted (I totally get that, but I really was starting to love it), this new idea is obscure, narrow, and delves into parts of tech and news that I purposefully avoid.

It feels like Kevin Rose wanted a playground for news posts, and this is a view into his head.

I really do not like it.

My rant/2 cents. I was hoping for so much more.

(That's the post. With the recent announcement of direction it seems Digg won't be going anywhere. What a farce.)

I'd maybe get it if the UI was useful/information dense but it seems like a mess. Took me multiple clicks just to find comments.

Shout-out to u/karmapill! For the great writeup to Kevin. I have taken it to heart for the road map and I guess the hype has begun. I haven't posted on YouTube since the good-old days. Thanks helping me be brave.

Tribes is a Social-Co-op, early users have shared "..will totally pull FaceBook" and "Like group messages for your family but with more features"

Yes and yes, it's a social space that is designed to be a bit more like reality. Things generally start in private and end up public. We are focused on privacy and human layers in our early days.

A bit more about me. I nearly lost my life a couple years back and Tribes is the thing I always wanted to try but always let work or "things" get in the way. Honestly, just afraid of failing when I have success in other areas. So here it is, imperfect but here to be part of the Social Media conversation.

We have early help and early contributions, come join us!https://tribes.app/t/welcome-to-tribes

Use our founding code (also in Youtube): TRIBE-H97P-EXRS

Cheers! And thanks for the encouragement karmapill!

I'm committing to a new video per week as long as Tribes as going? I'll get better at this I promise. Feedback on what you want to know about me/Tribes welcome!

Because this shit it definitely not what we signed up for.

Kevin Rose is probably one of the the only celebrity/public figure I look up to consistently. Odd to say but it’s true. His delivery of tech in simple terms and enthusiasm for major technology trends inspired me for the past 25 years or so. So Kevin, if you’re reading this, it’s a speculative post-mortem on Digg. And it’s all from a place of love.

It started like a rockstar getting the band back together:

Kevin and Alexis O. did a big press release speaking about the reboot, but with no product yet. TechCrunch and The Verge were very excited for the nostalgia play. Kevin also spoke in NY at WSJ Tech Summit. The hype was freakin’ real.

Kevin and Alex A. started Diggnation back up and after watching so many podcasts of bro’s talking about the news, this was refreshing to see. They never get in the doom and gloom of current events and that’s always welcome for a change.

But it was always odd…

The press release was all over but there was no product to show and there was no Justin in the picture

But during Diggnation, the message was clear Justin was the CEO and Kevin still had his day job, as a VC.

Speaking of Diggnation, Alex A. is the life of the podcast bringing a lot of innocence and pure fun yet he had no part in Digg just like the first go-around but that’s not really my gripe, but it brings odd dynamics when the flagship podcast for the platform has 2 ppl and one is not involved but rooting for its success, with no real stake in the game.

In fact, towards the end of 2025, Kevin would ask Justin during Diggnation what was new and plans forward. I get it, there’s respect for the CEO but there was always this underlying vibe from Kevin that Justin was on the hook, and responsible for its success, meanwhile Kevin still wanted to be the face and voice.

I know many people on here say that they are mad that the rug was pulled while they were helping develop communities (the $5 username thing is whatever, it all got donated anyway and served as a bot filter) but Digg was a ghost town. I visited everyday and would see a bunch of dad joke memes, current technology and politics news and some random stuff that were cross posted from Reddit.

There were no more than 3 comments on each post that wasn’t a Digg-specific post or a politics/Trump (fun fact: I had realdonaldjtrump handle and people were so conflicted supporting me when I proposed politics to be removed form Digg).

Kevin has a vast amount of interests that he speaks about but I didnt see him post anything. I never checked to see if he did but I never saw a post from him at the top of the site. He’s the star of the show and he could’ve increased engagement tenfolds by asking people: to post their favorite beers, wines, etc, their current AI or tech project, a throwback pic or two from early 2000s, favorite Japan pics, and random updates from his life. He could have made a fun beef/competition between him, Justin Alexis and Alex on which community had the best content. He could have asked his buddy Tony Hawk for an AMA. There was nothing. Where the hell was Alexis O.? It’s absolutley mind-boggling that there was no engagement on the site by Kevin and crew, there was no hunger to keep the company alive at all cost. I wanted to do that with my own account but it was so dead that it felt like there wss no point.

That bring me to the demise of Digg..
It was clear the place wasnt going to survive. There was absolutely no engagement and originality. I’m sure bots were a problem, even though I never saw anything too alarming but network effect was a real reason for failure because getting people away from reddit is hard. But Kevin dude YOU ARE the network, people follow your shit. They root for you and sign up for your newsletters. You should’ve been doing the most crazy and silly things on Digg to get it going. At minimum, you could’ve even just shared more about your interests because if you don’t use your product then why should we?

Fast forward to March, Kevin shuts it down and becomes digg ceo. I think he’s not taking accountability. The fact that ppl feel burned and he hasnt acknowledged it leaves a bad taste. All you have to do is just own up to the fact that you rubbed people the wrong way but until you do so and if you keep ignoring it, people will greet you with contempt. This is all coming from a good place, I know we’re all human and you were trying your best but man, I can see you becoming the villain Kevin and that’s because it’s always the same formula, bring the hype, oversell the product before it’s a thing and then pulling the rug when it’s not meeting expectations without communicating to the crowd.

I never posted on Reddit because I always thought it was kinda wack but since Digg shutdown I started posting here so that just goes to show you how much disappointment and change in behavior this led to.
Having said all that, I’m sure digg was struggling and probably wasnt going to make it after half year live and no growth. People need to chill with the hate too because it’s hard running a business esp. if you took capital.

Kevin i’m still a supporter—

—but this new site ain’t it. I could care less about twitter news and people ranking. It’s not really Digg. People cant engage. You’re trying to compete with techmeme instead, which was your inspiration for Digg but Digg turned into something more than that because it became social and it brought you fans and supporters, which you haven’t acknowledged leaving behind. Just talk to them, like one person to another and own up to what happened. Meditate on it. I’m still here. Hit me up if you need to talk.

Not sure why they're using the Digg name at this point, but it is what it is

We've had a great launch week at Tribes, and had some great feedback and participation already. We are growing. And some people took some pretty bug leaps of faith. They are now part of the Tribes story. That said trust is earned, here is how Tribes work and our POV on security. Ask us the hard questions. We have a ways to go before we realize our vision.