Digg users can take down Digg. Literally. That’s what exactly happened when a code that unlocked copyrighted DVDs appeared on Kevin Rose’s front page and Digg users started digging it. The site’s administrators began taking down the links and suspending the accounts of those who posted them. The users disagreed and revolted by flooding the site. The New York Times has an article about it.
So, Rose posted on his blog: “But now, after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying.”
Kevin, you have to realize that you don’t “own” Digg anymore. Well, at least you did, with your blog post.
I agree completely — Digg’s infrastructure, while nice, is only a tiny percentage of their overall valuation. The real gold is in the community. As with nightclubs, if Digg ever gets “uncool” the crowd will move on. I think that Kevin Rose has to put staying “cool” as priority number one or all he would own would be a few hundred thousand lines of code and a website with a bad reputation.
Very interesting, thanks for posting.