This is an excellent description of the trajectory of Digg, the first platform I witnessed going through this lifecycle. In this case, the competitor that drained users from Digg was Reddit.
Another feature of Digg’s decline was a disastrous redesign that, overnight, soured most of the users on the site. It was basically a speed run of step 5 here.
oh, yeah. That was a bonehead move on the part of Digg. I was happy with it until that disasterous change.
It reminds me of a bar I used to go to in San Francisco called The Rat and the Raven. There was a bartender there named Storm Large and she was great. This was a long time ago. It was packed every single day. People from all walks of life went there - from bikers to investment bankers.
Then it was bought out. Instead of leaving it alone, they decided they could make it better. They changed it to some kind of upscale thing. Put nice floors down, tables, nice railings.
I went in every once in a while and it was crickets on the weekends. Nobody there ever.
If one goes in there in the due diligence phase of checking it out, and it is packed every night, why fuck with a good thing?
Another feature of Digg’s decline was a disastrous redesign that, overnight, soured most of the users on the site. It was basically a speed run of step 5 here.