As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience

Reddit announced in its third-quarter earnings that it is transitioning to a primarily logged-in experience. The move is designed to protect its data from AI scraping, enable lucrative licensing deals with AI model providers, and increase revenue by better monetizing logged-in users who provide more signals for ad targeting. This comes as Reddit's search traffic referrals dropped by over 1 million per week in October, and U.S. daily active users declined 2% year-over-year to 50.7 million, though global daily active users remained flat at 130.3 million. Despite user declines, Reddit's revenue grew 53% year-over-year to $895 million, with net income up 74% to $283 million, and average revenue per U.S. daily active user rose 53% to $13.82. The shift will first be tested in select markets outside the U.S. in the fourth quarter, with no timeline yet for a global rollout. Reddit emphasizes that logged-in users can still maintain anonymity and use incognito mode, and CEO Steve Huffman acknowledged the change is significant for the open internet but deemed it the right decision for the platform and business.

(Source：TechCrunch)