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

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.

Earlier this year, Reddit began testing a requirement that people use one of its mobile apps to access its mobile website. It plans on expanding testing.

“Currently only about 13 percent of eligible mobile web users are seeing the app conversion prompt, so this has room to scale,” Huffman said.

As of July, Reddit requires users to be logged in to use Old.Reddit.com. More recently, it blocked access to Old Reddit for people who haven’t logged in within the previous six months.

Reddit also effectively shuttered most third-party apps by making its API expensive in 2024.

Combined, the changes should make it significantly easier for Reddit to understand who uses Reddit and why, which it says will help manage things like AI scraping and evolving search habits.

The changes should also help Reddit understand ad effectiveness and gain additional insight into user activity, while making it more appealing to advertisers and investors.

Reddit reported a net income of $283 million (a 74 percent YoY increase) off of $895 million in revenue (a 53 percent YoY increase) in Q3.

Advance Publications, which owns Ars Technica parent Condé Nast, is the largest shareholder in Reddit.