I believe reddit was always closer to being the site that Digg's users wanted that Digg itself. It was more focused on discussion (there are self-posts, r/AskR

I believe reddit was always closer to being the site that Digg's users wanted that Digg itself. It was more focused on discussion (there are self-posts, r/AskReddit, etc.) and less on pure link sharing. Digg v4 just gave many Digg users a reason to give reddit a chance (and maybe push through being initially put off by its design), and they never looked back, even after Digg resolved the initial issues.