Digg is currently allowing users to pay $5 to get in first and help test the platform.
It was created by the same people as reddit, and will ultimately suffer the same fate as reddit. It solves nothing, but users will prefer it because a smooth UX is so important, and Lemmy doesn't offer that yet.
I don't know about other countries, but it has 0% to do with UX in the US. It can't have anything to do with it, because Americans in the main won't even try federated social media. Well, unless you have an expensive definition of UX that includes having a corporate logo.
Despite the mythology about freedom, the US is a fairly repressive culture. One can do and be unusual things, but one must expect to be judged and shit on at best, or murdered at worst. So Americans as a whole are terrified of stepping out of line. That's a big reason why we love our corporate brands so much. They are 'safe' markers of identity, a social seal of approval, if you will. You can't be weird or different if everybody else is doing it, too.
The new Digg has some residual brand recognition from the old Digg, and a corporation behind it. That's why it'll do better in the US than Lemmy.