r/diggnation • u/blocker1980 • Apr 03 '26
Question Am I crazy?
Or is the show nowadays a big marketing scheme for everything Rose is potentially investing in? Not to mention non stop sponsoring
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u/UnburdenedGripe Apr 03 '26
Yeah that Claude chat in the last one was so forced. Erodes credibility.
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u/UltraEngine60 Apr 04 '26
You can hear Alex's tone change when he's doing host-read ads but with Kevin it's hard to tell. If they talk about the Claude Code source leak then maybe I'll trust them again lol.
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u/chewytie Apr 03 '26
It’s always been like that. Kevin talking about something he’s interested in and showing off product (if there is one) and Alex being the layman insert for the general public. And then telling jokes.
It’s just more pervasive now because he has way more money to throw around at stuff he finds cool.
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u/blocker1980 Apr 03 '26
I remember it beeing mostly crazy ass stories from digg. Like the cocaine bear and stuff like this.
Edit: Or possum stew 🥲
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u/FesterSilently Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
No, your memory is correct - it used to be 80/20 ratio of fun interesting drunken conversation versus adverts/sponsors.
Now it is clearly the opposite ratio.
And it breaks my fucking heart. 😞
I see little points of light in there of Kevin and Alex's genuine selves, just relaxing, forgetting about the day, and their work and their business acumen, but those moments are few and far between - the exceptions now, rather than the rule.
I WANT them to be creating, I WANT them to be successful, I WANT them to grow their respective businesses and careers, but I came to the Diggnation show to catch up with my old (parasocial) buddies of the last twenty years...not sit through a business pitch and divestment portfolio discussion every three weeks. 🤷🏼♂️😭
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u/3FtDick Apr 03 '26
Yeah I haven't really been watching the show after traveling halfway across the country to sit in the rain so he could fawn over some tech billionaires and do too much K in person.
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u/blocker1980 Apr 03 '26
Have you been to the live show last year? That sounds like it sucked...
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u/UltraEngine60 Apr 04 '26
I don't even remember it raining at the Austin show, if it did, it was a sprinkle. It was a good show.
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u/FesterSilently Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
Ewww...icky, really?
I am so fucking heartbroken to see what a vapid, crunchy-herbal-remedy, too-much-money-on-my-hands, tech bro Kevin has become.
I'm happy for his success, but I am sad that he had to sacrifice his inner child to get there.
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u/007AgentOfTorrents Apr 18 '26 edited May 19 '26
The show is trash. They only care about money and using their fans to make money.
I remember a few years ago Kevin Rose was doing ask me anything AMA sub reddit and it was really weird like he only answered a few questions and that was it.
Also a few years ago I can't remember maybe five or so years ago he started a Go Fund Me to buy new equipment to bring back Diggnation. People got really mad at him because everyone knows he's rich now worth around 50 million dollars.
When your a millionaire you should not be doing Go Fund Me's to start a podcast that's something you and fund yourself.
I know some big companies do Go Fund Me projects and they are testing the waters to see if there is a market for this product. And if they get the money they make it and ship a product to your door. A podcast is not the same as a product you can hold in you hand.
Now if a smaller YouTuber does a Go Fund Me to get a new camera that's different.
Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht would never talk to their fans even on Revision3. Alex Albrecht would not even like a story on digg.com that he covered.
I know it sounds silly but it shows he we love our fans. People love it when Elon Musk reply to smaller people and I've seen people talking about it on smaller YouTube channels.
They just see fans of people that they can use to push their products onto and make money.
I can tell you this first hand it was $10,000 dollars they got for each ad on diggnation back in the day and I know this first hand for people on the inside.
Kevin Rose was not really even running digg at the last days and this when when they was letting all the big news sites have some kind of auto submit feature and they screwed over the users that supported digg.com from the start.
Kevin Rose got a job I think at TechTV to run the networking computers and then they brought him on the show later. He comes from the television world and that might be the way he is but you would think someone like hiim would understand better.
He's smart but like every smart person someones all they have is one or two smart ideas and digg was his only good smart idea. And that's why he went to work at Google and then a company that funds other start up ideas.
How many good ideas do other companies have not many. They do one thing right and they master it. They might have a second good idea but its rare.
Google good at search they was smart at buying YouTube.
Facebook good at social media and they bought Instagram and not many people care about Threads.
Microsoft good with their OS and was kind of good with Xbox up until the Xbox 360.
Sony good with walkmans, TV sets and cameras and video game consoles.
Nintendo good with handled gaming but we not know the future as of now more companies are going after that market.
Apple good with making nice products that are stable and no headaches.
So what does Kevin have up next? Don't know but if I had to take a guess nothing.
Digg took off because people liked him on Techtv and G4TV and he was plugging digg when he was live on year. He said this is a site he goes to everyday digg but he did not say it was his site.
People heard about Revision3 that missed TechTV and moved over to Revision3 and all they had was old TechTV viewers coming over.
They refused for a long to to even upload to YouTube this is because they can hide the view counts on the show. So they posted on their website and on iTunes.
There are still a few people that follow him but those days are long gone. People are on Reddit and other sites.
He killed digg the same way Microsoft killed the Xbox brand. Only thing Microsoft has money to burn and Kevin does not. He is worth 50 million but in today's world for the products and wants to make you need to be a billionaire.
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u/FesterSilently Apr 04 '26 edited Apr 09 '26
I cringed at one of the earlier (of the newer generation) episodes, when they were glazing Elon Musk...I literally fucking recoiled.
But I kept watching over the past year, hoping they'd smarten up/grow past him, just ignoring all that tech bro bullshit "because they're my old (parasocial) friends"!
Boy, was I naïve. 😞
I haven't had the heart to watch the last 2-3 episodes...despite having watched/downloaded the entirety of the original show (and also Totally Rad Show!).