Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy. I used to spend lot of time on TheEnvironmentSite.org some time before Slashdot, but I cant recall whether anything else came in between those two.
I am this old:
BBS's -> College's Telnet -> .edu sites over lynx -> Usenet -> IRC -> commercial websites -> Slashdot -> Fark -> Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy
BBS From the back of Computer Shopper magazine, we would get a list of phone #'s to call which then connected us to various Wildcat BBS's that were filled with interesting & squirrelly information and people. Usually 1 at a time could connect, but the fancy ones had multiple phone-lines.
College/Telnet/Usenet Went to college and got access to a telnet account, which let me run Lynx and open a Usenet reader. From there we bounced all around text-based sites (using the book above) because there were no search engines. You had a big list of all the places you liked to visit, and you visited those. Sometimes, someone told you about another spot, or you played whack-a-mole with various .edu domains. A lot of kids started hosting sites on their dorm-room machines. Usenet opened up a whole world of discussion about topics far outside the scope of my tiny little town.
Next up was a PPoE connection using Trumpet Winsock and suddenly I could load NCSA Mosaic and mIRC and that opened up a graphical web with the easy ability to download software and more communication. Then Businesses all decided they needed to try "internet" for themselves, and you started seeing the rise of commercial endeavors. So early PCMag and other adopters showed up.
Slashdot came along and was primarily a Linux site, with some tech news sprinkled in. I still remember following the threads there for Columbine (when school shootings were still a novelty) and then on 9/11 when just about every site ground to a halt, there was lots of speculation and word-of-mouth, but at least information was still moving. It then expanded its audience with tags so that all sorts of news topics could open up and you could follow specific ones.
Ran with an RSS feed for a while around this point and subbed to all the different sites I liked, so I could get my fix in one place.
Fark came along and was an irreverent alternative to Slashdot. Somewhere between twitter performance art with everyone trying to make the catchiest title for their headline, but also just a lot of goofing off in the comments. Totalfark was $5 a month and worth the money to get at the un-curated content.
Then, just as Tech TV was going south and becoming some sort of wrestling-based channel, Kevin Rose mentions at the end of The Screen Savers about "This new website, Digg!" which in hindsight he was shamelessly plugging. That site offered the upvote/downvote concept allowing the community to create a constant stream of content. Somewhere along those lines Slashdot lost its luster, presumably because all of its content was curated by a handful of people who were in the process of selling out to other investors.
Reddit came along, and further customized the upvote/downvote/commenting experience. It also allowed you to create your own communities/subreddits and follow those. Because its audience was basically "anyone" it allowed for tons of creative content. Right as it started to take off, Digg made a huge faux pas on how they moderated content, which annoyed all the content creators and they moved to reddit as well.
I loved what Reddit could have been without the enshitification taking over. If you look at that list, Slashdot, Digg, Reddit all suffered from busily trying to monetize their users, and all of them died (or are dying) a slow, sad death. Fark is still owned by Drew Curtis, and as far as I can tell, still has a similar feel & userbase.
Lemmy honestly feels like finding Usenet, IRC & Lynx again. There's a learning curve you have to get over, and then you have to be willing to hunt for your information. But the quality of the content is higher than reddit, and each one of those other services went through the same decline as we jumped ship to the new one.
In a world where every new "service" just annoys me now, because I know it's going to be frustrating to use, and will likely just steal my data, turn into a content/ad mill and eventually turn to shit Lemmy feels like a big middle finger to those sites. And I'm here for it.
I switched from slashdot to Digg. Digg to Reddit when Digg started censoring the Blu-Ray decryption key (before v4), then was on Reddit until RIF shut down. I'm scheduled to get my 16 year badge this year I think. I haven't posted or commented since RIF shut down though.
I'm debating whether to sell my account or delete it. $75 could buy a lot of printer filament.
I went from stumbleupon/fark, slashdot/google reader, digg, reddit, lemmy.
My account on reddit is pretty old. Like in the 17 years old area.
Digg i was on until the first exodus. (It wasnt just one migration, it happened in 2-3 waves). I actually like G4TechTV and diggnations show (amongst a few others like Hak5 etc)
I used Digg and it was great while it lasted.
I am not sure how many years I used Digg. In the rear-view mirror, it feels like a temporary gig between Slashdot and Reddit.
I remember visiting Reddit and StumbledUpon and thinking to myself how ugly these sites were compared to my beloved Digg
I was a casual lurker of Digg. I would open it up and scroll through for a bit, never spending more than 20 minutes or so just looking for something interesting to read. I don’t think I even knew it “died.”
In 2013 I joined Reddit, and somehow began spending hours reading posts and comments, and then becoming a poster/commenter myself.
I was using Digg and Reddit both at the height of Digg. I had already mostly moved over to Reddit at the time of the migration but still was on Digg some. But I was among those that abandoned Digg then.
Me!
I loved Digg back in the day. I had a reddit account too, but preferred Digg by a lot. Then the enshittification of Digg via v4 came along and I hopped wholesale over to reddit and never looked back.
I used to lurk on digg a long time ago, when the itnernet was good :(
Raises hand
I never used Digg, but I discovered Reddit around the time just after the Digg exodus happened.
StumbleUpon and RSS feeds were my go to for internet aggregation before I ended up on Reddit.
I discovered Digg about a year before the Digg Exodus to Reddit, so I don't know if I'd call it the "prime" but I was there just in time to watch it fall.
Yeah I moved from Digg to Reddit around 2008/2009. Was also a fairly low numbered user of Slashdot.
I used message boards well into the 2010s. Digg and reddit were a curiosity that I mostly lurked.
I remember I got downvoted on Digg for anecdote about how the climate had been changing over the years in my area. The comments in those types of posts were primarily deniers saying there wasn't scientific evidence of climate change.
I was a Slashdot -> Digg -> Reddit -> Lemmy (and actually quite a bit of imgur) wanderer.
I did do some local/regional dialup boards before that too.
I was reading /. when they opened up account registration and my friends got 4 digit ids, but I didn't sign up right away and have a 5 digit one. At the time it was of great import. I tried it last year. Still works.
I moved to Reddit from Digg with the great pre v4 exodus.
Forums/Slashdot(still alive 😃)/digg/newground »» Reddit/facebook/twitter (all dead) »» fediverse »» [the cycle continues] »» ∞
Most of the time, I have been a lurker without an account and only bothered to make an account or even log in with said account whenever I had to ask a question or answer something I knew about well.
I like forums and sites where you don't have to have an account to post/reply. However, with the growing issues with bots/sockpuppets/trolls and general troublemaker those beautiful vestige of an old trusting era are getting rarer and rarer (still lively, vibrant and growing as they and new services transitions to local networks/intranet though).
In any case, the internet has always been in constant flux. Nevertheless, I have always adapted myself with the changes and try not to put too many eggs in a single or few services. I usually prefer systems and services I can run/host myself for family, friends and myself.
I was active on the snopes message board before Reddit. Snopes went all to hell right around the time I switched. Now the message boards are gone and the site itself is mostly the owner asking for money.
I used it a little bit, not extensively. I watched Diggnation with Kevin and Alex though semi-regularly, as I used to watch TechTV prior to that.
I was really active Digg user and later HackerNews when it was really about hacking and not startups bs.
I joined Digg sometime around 2008 when the first videos of those crazy Russians climbing giant cranes first hit the web. I was over the moon with Digg but around 2010 one of my college roommates started yammering about this site Reddit and how much better it was. I don't think I actually visited Reddit until 2011, and even then I lurked for a year before I even made an account and started commenting on things. But the downfall of Digg and rise of Reddit was swift, and back then when Aaron was alive it really was a great site.
I even went to Diggnation Live, here in London.
Digg was amazing till they ruined it. =\
I wasn't. Before Reddit I was on IRC.
I used to use my Blackberry to read Digg every morning in college while waiting for classes to start. It was great in its heyday, but maybe that's just nostalgia or that I'd not experienced anything quite like it prior.
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Yeah it was a huge event, felt like a giant online protest, and from my perspective it was the beginning of the end for Digg, and signaled it's decline.
I'm too young for Digg.
Almost never did, to be honest, but I'm sure I missed out on a lot of interesting stuff because of it.
I'd love to have diggnation back
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I was on digg as well as reddit. I always liked reddit a lot better and was always baffled as to why digg was so much more popular. Reddit always felt more diverse (in topics) and organic (user driven) to me. I guess others had a different view.
Sadly, no one no one seems to remember kuro5hin. Barely even me. It had its moments though.
I was a member for promoting my blogs
My history would be: BBSs>various forums>Slashdot>SomethingAwful>Digg>reddit>StumbleUpon>4chan>HackerNews>voat.co>Lemmy
I wasn't a heavy Digg user, but it was fun.
I used digg a fair amount before the v4 revamp
I still use Digg.
👋
I did, I was in high school at the time and I had just discovered Firefox. I remember it was a while before it was possible to have nested replies. Before Digg I think I just used StumbleUpon. Good times!
I was on Digg but never much more than a super casual lurker. Like maybe hitting it up at work a few times a month. I was still on USENET most of the time so there wasn't much of a need.
I was using Stumbleupon back in Digg's day
Never used it.
I was most active on Slashdot and Fark back then.
And then I migrated to Reddit.
I was a user of StumbleUpon at one point. I don't think I ever had an account on Digg.
Omg I loved Digg so much. Watched diggnation every single week too, via my softmodded original Xbox with navi x. I was so mad when they sold out lol at the time I had a little tech blog and I was talking so much shit about the buyout that someone from the new team personally messaged me to call me out on my bullshit 😂 it took me forever to figure out reddit when I finally made the switch and I never really felt at home over there. Lemmy feels much better
EDIT: Also, this song will forever live in my heart https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XLLRsn_nr6s
Yo
It was my primary internet procrastination tool. It’s been over a decade since using it though so I don’t remember it too well.
I kinda dabbled in most of them, except 4chan. In no particular order: Various webrings, usenet, tumblr, stumbleupon, digg, kiro5hin, reddit, slashdot, twitter, lots of rss. More reading than posting.
For me it was aimlessly wandering around -> 9gag -> imgur -> reddit. Never heard about digg before the API discussion.
Remember when there weren't podcasts and you would have to pay for a time slot at a radio station to broadcast stuff?
Yup
nah i lurked on /. for like 15 years and then made a reddit account that later got banned for being anti-white
I used Plime before reddit, around 2008. Hard to even find info on it these days, not that it was anything special; same general setup as digg or reddit or lemmy.
