No, it wasn't the ads. Digg aways had ads. The problem was that the community felt more and more pushed out the door. And it wasn't just thet there was an RSS

No, it wasn't the ads. Digg aways had ads. The problem was that the community felt more and more pushed out the door. And it wasn't just thet there was an RSS importer, it was that digg was replaced a website built around a community with a website that was _nothing but_ an RSS reader. There was an understanding in the community that the new digg was going to be about allowing content creators to advertize, not the previous submission/voting system (which was already skewed to the userbase's tolerance limits). In short it was not the advertising content alone, but that the advertising content replacing real content in a drive to monetize. That is exactly the kind of thing twitter is doing. Here is an open letter from Ohanian to Rose where he blames the downfall of digg on the VC meddling. http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose http://alexisohanian.com/an-open-letter-to-kevin-rose