“Companies charge as much as $15,000 to get content up on Digg, said Neil Patel, chief technology officer at the Internet marketing firm ACS. If a story becomes popular on Digg and generates links back to a marketer’s Web site, that site may rise in search engine results and will not have to spend money on search advertising, he said.“

15K? It can be done for a lot less than that.

Ignoring that aspect, people may whine about the corruption, and the corruption is indeed unfortunate, however it exposes a fundamental truth, and the reason why these systems will almost always fail: editorial control matters.

The problem with editorial control is that is doesn’t scale well.

That is the reality. Either these systems adapt, Google-style, or they will fail.

Or perhaps links will become a lot less important.

Can’t see it happening myself…