it was different. Digg underwent a major site overhaul and redesign that the users universally hated, and most everyone migrated to reddit almost overnight. the changes were rumored to be coming for a couple of months, so the migration had already started slowly over that time, but once Digg version 4.0 was implemented, a virtual tidal wave of users rushed over to reddit all at once.

Reddit had already existed for a few years by that point and already had an existing user base and culture, similar to lemmy now. Unlike the Digg —> reddit exodus, however, reddit many times the size that digg ever was and is dying a slow, ugly death. while lemmy is experiencing surges in users, it’s happening in several smaller waves rather than all at once as users explore several available alternatives, possibly staying on reddit and dealing with the crappy experience, or even going without it at all, having given up on social media altogether.