Reddit will require login to access most content
Reddit announced it will shift to a logged-in-user-first experience, with most content requiring a login account to access, a major change in its 21-year history. CEO Steve Huffman said the move is intended to improve user experience, strengthen the advertising business, and stop bots from scraping proprietary data. The new experience will begin testing outside the United States this quarter; the homepage and content reached via search engines or shared links will remain accessible, but browsing specific subreddits without logging in will no longer be possible.
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Reddit is shifting from the open web to a login-first model, which helps readers understand the trade-off between data scraping and platform traffic in the AI era.
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Earlier today Reddit announced that it’s rolling out social media-style ‘For You’ feeds, but that wasn’t the only big news today. Reddit also now says that it’s going to start requiring a logged-in account for accessing most of its content.
Reddit transitioning to being primarily a service for logged-in users
Sara Fischer writes at Axios:
Reddit on Thursday said it’s moving to become a primarily logged-in experience, marking one of the most significant shifts in its 21-year history.
Reddit has long championed the open web. Now, it’s pushing to build a more direct relationship with users while also protecting its data from increased scraping in the AI era.
Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said in an interview that the change is being made to “improve its user experience, bolster its ads business and prevent bots from scraping its proprietary data.”
Top comment by TruthCopy
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That’s going to kill a lot of their traffic from search and instantly remove a ton of content from AI summaries. Interesting move. View all comments
The plan is to start testing the new logged-in experience this quarter, but only outside the US to start. It will then roll it out more broadly around the world.
What will Reddit users without an account be able to access? Huffman acknowledges they’re still finalizing those details. Per Axios though, the Reddit homepage will still be accessible to everyone. And if you visit the site “via search engines or shared links,” you’ll still be able to access the content.
However, if you try to browse Reddit in any other way or visit a specific subreddit without being logged in, it sounds like that will no longer be possible.
What do you think of Reddit making this change? Let us know in the comments.
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