Today Reddit announced that it’s launching social media-style “For You” feeds, but that wasn’t the only big news today. Reddit now also says it will start requiring a logged in account to access most of its content.
Reddit is becoming primarily a service for logged in users
Sara Fischer writes to Axios:
Reddit said on Thursday that it will become a primarily login-based experience, marking one of the most significant changes in its 21-year history.
Reddit has long supported the open web. Now it’s pushing to build a more direct relationship with users while protecting its data from increased scraping in the age of artificial intelligence.
Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said in an interview that the change was made to “improve the user experience, strengthen the advertising business and prevent bots from stealing its first-party data.”
The plan is to begin testing the new sign-in experience this quarter, but initially only outside the United States. It will later distribute it more widely around the world.
What will Reddit users be able to access without an account? Huffman admits they are still finalizing those details. For Axios however, the Reddit homepage will still be accessible to everyone. And if you visit the site “via search engines or shared links,” you will still be able to access the content.
However, if you try to browse Reddit otherwise or visit a specific subreddit without being logged in, it appears that this will no longer be possible.
What do you think about Reddit making this change? Let us know in the comments.
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