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Reddit is moving to “a logged-in-only experience,” CEO says
Confirmed
In Short: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced the platform will shift to a logged-in-only experience, citing scraping and declining search traffic.
Reddit CEO Steve Huffman announced that the platform will transition to a logged-in-only experience, requiring users to create an account to access most of the site's content. This change aims to protect Reddit's valuable data and improve user engagement.
Huffman explained during the company's latest earnings call that the shift is necessary due to the significant decline in search traffic. According to Huffman, search traffic has dropped by more than 1 million referrals on average per week during October, potentially leading to a low-double-digit percentage decrease in daily active unique users (DAUqs) in Q4.
The logged-in requirement will also help Reddit better adapt to emerging regulations around the world and safeguard its data from unauthorized access, which Huffman said primarily occurs through logged-out experiences. Reddit currently sees only about 13 percent of eligible mobile web users seeing the app conversion prompt, indicating room for improvement in user retention.
In Q3 2026, Reddit reported a net income of $283 million, a 74 percent year-over-year increase, and revenue of $895 million, a 53 percent increase. Despite this growth, the company's search traffic has been declining, with logged-out traffic and web traffic being the most heavily impacted.
Huffman emphasized that the logged-in-only experience will ensure users have the best Reddit experience possible, allowing them to find content and communities most relevant to them. He also noted that the change will provide more signals for ads targeting and higher engagement generally.
Reddit will begin testing the logged-in-only experience outside the United States in Q4, using the results to optimize a version of logged-in-only Reddit 'globally.' The company plans to find the right boundary between logged-in and logged-out experiences, with Huffman saying, 'We need to find the right boundary,' as it figures out when users encounter a 'hard prompt' to log in.
Currently, Reddit has 130.3 million daily active unique users worldwide and 50.7 million in the United States. The logged-in requirement will affect these users, who have traditionally been able to browse Reddit without creating an account.
Huffman acknowledged the shift as a significant change, stating, 'This is a big change for Reddit, where we’ve allowed logged-out access to basically all of Reddit for the last two decades.' He added, 'But I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the right decision for our platform and the right decision for our business.'
What this adds
The company will use these tests to decide what a logged-in-only Reddit will look like globally, with the aim of improving user engagement and protecting valuable data.
What's confirmed
- The change also comes as Reddit says that search referral traffic was “down meaningfully” in Q3 2026, mainly in regards to logged-out traffic.
- CEO Steve Huffman explains in a shareholder letter and a post on Reddit that the website will becoming a “logged-in-only experience.” 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 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.
- The company will use those tests to decide what a logged-in-only Reddit will look like “globally,” per Huffman.
What's still developing
- Reddit CEO Steve Huffman confirmed the impending change in a letter (PDF) to shareholders today about Q3 performance.
- The end of Reddit without an account: logging in will become mandatory Reddit to test login-based access to stimulate engagement and advertising Reddit Search Traffic Drop: 5 Sign-In Effects [2026] As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience Reddit is recording a drop in traffic from searches and will encourage visitors to log in to limit data scraping.
- Right now, you can browse Reddit without having an account, and the site is generally a great resource for crowdsourced information on a whole range of topics.
- I know I’m not the only person who appends “reddit” to a lot of Google searches to find answers to things written by actual humans instead of robots.
- Reddit is making this announcement alongside its Q3 2026 earnings, which were released today.