Comment by processing

As I remember pre the redesign of the Digg front page, it was controlled by "Diggers" who were being paid by blogs and brands for the traffic (Digg.com could deliver 100k>1m+ visitors a post with the right content angles). The redesign was to take back control of the homepage results and be able to charge brands for the exposure. Once the users realised they had little sway in getting a post to the front page they left.