I was there too i was one of the ones that jumped over. I know its a big internet so maybe we both had different experiences. So maybe you are right and the timing was just a correlation and not causation.
reddit used to release page-views and maybe user info (i forget) annually.
there was a bunch of users that jumped over to digg, but they continued to also use reddit. when digg died there was a small bump of digg users, but i dont recall anything noticable in the big subs
Ah I only used Digg and never heard of reddit till Digg died and never joined most of the big subs. But also reddit was so small back then a small bump is a good kick start. Google trends data correlates with what I saw Digg was more search for in 2008 then by 2011 Digg was dead after the 4.0 debacle in 2010 and reddit took off in 2011.
Digg had a large viewer base and there was a lot of skullduggery going on amongst people who figured out how to game its algorithm, get on the front page, and direct traffic to some URL. But without actual data I would venture to guess that Digg and Reddit had roughly equivalent bases of actually genuinely active community posters and commenters and a lot of people were on both. Once Digg got taken over by the spam posters, it died off and Reddit remained. Reddit definitely inherited its mantle and probably many community members, but not the massive viewer audience.
