Reddit is moving to “a logged-in-only experience,” CEO says

Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Minimize to nav In the future, you won’t be able to use Reddit without logging in. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed the impending change in a letter (PDF) to shareholders today about Q3 performance. He said that Reddit is shifting “to a logged-in-only experience,” adding: Moving to primarily logged-in will ensure our users have the best Reddit experience possible, and can find the content and communities most relevant to them. It is better for our business because we will have more signals for ads targeting, and being logged-in leads to higher engagement generally. It also allows us to protect access to Reddit’s extremely valuable corpus of data, and helps us better adapt to emerging regulations around the world. Huffman also said that the login requirement will help Reddit better retain new users. Reddit will start testing the login requirement in “select,” non-US markets in Q4. The company will use those tests to decide what a logged-in-only Reddit will look like “globally,” per Huffman. “Pretty much all of the major ad-based platforms have gone through this transition. We are excited and moving quickly,” the CEO added, noting Reddit’s intent to become a “direct daily habit for every Internet user.” The impending requirement comes as Reddit search referral traffic “was down meaningfully in Q3,” Huffman wrote. The largest hit came from logged-out and web traffic, and the overall trend has continued into Q4. “During October, we have seen that search traffic has dropped 1 million referrals on average per week. If this rate of decline continues, current trends would suggest that total DAUqs [or daily active unique users] could fall in Q4, by a low-double-digit percentage from our current base of 130 million DAUqs,” Huffman wrote. Reddit’s average number of DAUqs increased 12 percent year over year (YoY) in Q3. Huffman showed interest in Reddit becoming less dependent on search referrals. “Logged-in and app DAUq are our most valuable users, and they are our primary focus,” he wrote. Reddit has been testing a login requirement on desktop since at least August, per user reports. Keeping track of Redditors The login requirement is one of many changes that Reddit has made over the past couple of years aimed at growing its user base of its website and mobile apps that also make it easier to track user activity.