Reddit is moving to logged-in only as AI eats its search traffic

CEO Steve Huffman said Reddit is shifting to a primarily logged-in experience. TechCrunch and Engadget both report he wrote about it in a shareholder letter and a post on Reddit.

His words: "A key piece of work to retain new audiences is shifting Reddit to a logged-in-only experience." He also called it "a big change for Reddit, where we've allowed logged-out access to basically all of Reddit for the last two decades," according to Slashdot, which quotes The Verge.

No. In the fourth quarter, Reddit will test the idea in select markets outside the US. The results will shape a version for everyone else.

• No global date: Reddit has not said when the change reaches all users.
• No hard wall yet: Huffman said the company still has to find "the right boundary."
• Share links: he said there will be "some version of Reddit accessible" for people who arrive from a shared link or from search before a hard prompt to log in appears.

In real life Say a friend texts you a Reddit thread about fixing a leaky tap. Today you just tap and read. After the change, you might see a sign-in prompt first, depending on where you live and what Reddit decides.

For years, people added the word "Reddit" to their Google searches to get real answers from real people. That sent millions of visitors to the site.

Now AI answers sit on top of search results, and fewer people click through. Why it matters: Reddit says search referrals fell by more than 1 million a week on average in October.

Huffman was blunt about it on the call. "The reality is, the AI mode does not drive traffic, not for us and not to anybody, as far as I know," Engadget quotes him as saying. "It used to be a traffic driver, now it's not."

The business is strong. The audience in its biggest market is not. Here are the figures TechCrunch reports for the quarter:

By the numbers: US daily users were down 2% from a year ago. Yet average revenue per US daily user rose 53% to $13.82. Globally it rose 36% to $6.87.

Reddit also warned that if the search decline continues, daily users could fall by a low double-digit percentage next quarter. TechCrunch worked the math: 10% to 12% would put the total near 115 million to 117 million.

Huffman gave a plain answer. "It is better for our business because we will have more signals for ads targeting, and being logged-in leads to higher engagement generally," he wrote.

A signal is a small clue about what you like. When you are logged in, Reddit can see which communities you follow and what you vote on. Advertisers pay more to reach people they can match to interests.

TechCrunch adds that logged-in users also get personalized feeds and community suggestions. That includes a new "For You" feed announced a day earlier, which mixes posts from your communities with other recommendations.

Scraping means software that copies a site's content in bulk. AI companies have used it to collect text to train their models.

Huffman said a login requirement helps "protect access to Reddit's extremely valuable corpus of data." Slashdot, quoting The Verge, reports he said the vast majority of unauthorized access happens through logged-out pages.

The big picture: Reddit is not leaving the AI business. It says it will keep signing licensing deals, like the ones it made with OpenAI and Google in 2024. It simply wants those companies to pay instead of copying.

Engadget reports the Google deal is worth about $60 million a year. It also says Reddit may be rethinking it: Huffman said there are "active discussions" and that any deal must be "a fair exchange of value."

Yes, it fits a pattern. In September, Reddit said it would end RSS feeds and public API access (an API is a doorway that lets apps pull data from a service). We covered that in Reddit is killing RSS feeds because AI bots wouldn't stop scraping them.

Engadget notes some users are already unhappy about restrictions on Old Reddit, the classic version of the site. Each step closes another way of reading Reddit without an account.

Reddit says yes. Being logged in does not mean giving up privacy from other users. Slashdot, quoting The Verge, reports Huffman said Reddit does not need to know your real identity: "Honestly, we don't want to know."

The company has also rebuilt incognito mode in its app and is re-releasing it. Engadget says Huffman suggested private browsing could help with people who keep uninstalling and reinstalling the app.

The catch: Reddit has not said exactly what logged-out visitors will still be able to see. Even 9to5Google says those details are unclear for now.

Huffman said the move helps Reddit "better adapt to emerging regulations around the world." Engadget points out he did not name age verification laws, but says a login would presumably help the company comply with them.

That part is Engadget's reading, not a Reddit statement. Reddit has not said more.

What's next: the fourth-quarter tests. Reddit says it will study the effect on user experience, its business and "the whole Reddit ecosystem," then decide where the lines go.

Watch two things. One is whether traffic from search keeps falling. The other is how many people sign up when the prompt appears.

• If you only read Reddit through Google, expect more sign-in prompts over time, starting outside the US.
• If you already have an account, expect a more personal feed, including the new "For You" tab, and more targeted ads.
• If you value privacy, look for the rebuilt incognito mode. Reddit says logged in does not mean identified.
• If you run a site that depends on search, Reddit's numbers are a warning about what AI answers can do to clicks.