While this is a shame, there was neither good content nor engagement. I mean, when you run a search for "DesignerNews", the first sub-result is "DesignerNews is almost dead", which seemed to always be true.

I do have a Google/Alexa/something app published that reads the top stories from DesignerNews, which will definitely break, so I'll have to dig around and take it offline.

Are there any alternatives?