Comment by jq-r
3 days ago
Slashdot looked a lot like HN with high information density. It was fast and easy to read all the comments. Then a redesign happened because of web 2.0 or "mobile-first" hype and most of the comments got hidden/collapsed by default, sorted almost randomly etc. So a new user would come there and say "wtf this is a dead conversation" or would have to click too many times to get to the full conversation. So new user would leave, and so would the old ones because the page was so hard to use. It just lost users and that was that. All because of the redesign which they never wanted to revert. Sad really because I still think it had/has the best comment moderation by far.
Looks like I've had my Slashdot account over 20 years. I remember the original UI being much simpler - much more like HN. Did the membership collapse because of the UI changes they made or because Digg and Reddit took its place?
I think it was mostly because of the UI, but I don't think anyone has any data on that so it probably was a timing and combination of things. The UI redesign really was a hot topic for weeks/months on slashdot but unfortunately they stuck to their guns and got what they've deserved.