Digg and Reddit were rivals of sorts, constantly mocking each other, occasionally brigading and competing for being the better site. Then Digg administration changed the design of the site and gave way more power to corporations and advertisers, and then everyone just packed up and went to Reddit, where they were welcomed and accepted.

User numbers were obviously much smaller, because the internet was less than half the size of what it is today (2 billion users in 2010 vs. 5 billion today).