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 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.”
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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Ryan got his start in journalism as an Editor at MacStories, where he worked for four years covering Apple news, writing app reviews, and more. For two years he co-hosted the Adapt podcast on Relay FM, which focused entirely on the iPad. As a result, it should come as no surprise that his favorite Apple device is the iPad Pro.
