Why do some sites require users to log in just to view their content?
Posted by JohnRogan1234@reddit | RedditAlternatives | View on Reddit | 21 comments
Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin and Quora require login just to view content. What benefit do they get from this?
Pamasich@reddit
I don't know for big sites like the ones you mention.
But I've seen fediverse instances go behind a loginwall, and in those cases it was to combat spam. I doubt that's a factor for the big players, but when you see a small site do it, that's probably the reason behind it.
MrWeirdoFace@reddit
It's a bit of a conundrum, isn't it? How do I know if I want to join your site if I can't see what it's like?
p4r4d0x@reddit
Part of the reason is to minimize scraping by AI companies. AI companies will thieve all data accessible on the public internet to train their models with. Google and OpenAI have paid Reddit $160m for access to a feed of all user posts and comments to train against, so there's a lot of money on the line. Twitter in particular has such aggressive anti-scraping techniques implemented that the results no longer show in Google.
come-home@reddit
Most platforms did it before AI, but AI scrapers are an ongoing pressure which incentivizes walling off your content.
topselection@reddit
Because they do that, I've always been doubtful of how popular those sites are. How the hell does a site that nobody can see have like a billion users? It doesn't make any sense. But when everybody thinks they have a million followers, nobody wants to say the emperor has no clothes because they're the naked emperor too.
Die4Ever@reddit
forcing everyone to create an account probably improves their attach rates, once you're over that hump you're way more likely to start contributing content (posts/comments/likes)
I hate it
habarnam@reddit
They have the wrong incentives regarding their users, namely they value user counts more than offering an open experience.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit
Whenever you think that a giant entity a million times bigger than you is "wrong", it isn't because it actually is wrong, but because you don't know what's its ulterior goals (as opposed to public statements) are.
Always invert Hanlon's Razor.
habarnam@reddit
Who said anything about giant entities? And I'm not one for absolutist moral dialectics, "wrong" in this context means from the point of view of the people using the website. Everyone can be the good guy in their own story.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit
The shells that own the $26 billion Reddit entity have "their own story". You are a flea on a dog, and you call it wrong when it didn't go the direction you or even a majority of fleas wanted. But the dog wasn't wrong, it just didn't serve you because you weren't its master. The dog's incentive is to obey its master.
habarnam@reddit
Looking past your "flea" comments, I'm not sure that what you're saying is actually in disagreement with me.
CptHammer_@reddit
Yes, but why are you wearing watermelon on your feet? I don't remember telling you to do that.
barrygateaux@reddit
How do you think they make money?
JohnRogan1234@reddit (OP)
From ads, premium, etc., but forcing people to sign up doesn’t directly make money, does it?
Toothless_NEO@reddit
It's the hope they can sell the data or that people will pay for something later.
barrygateaux@reddit
You enter details to sign up and they sell it. Data is like digital gold to social media companies.
Also they can track your behaviour with ads when you're signed up, which is valuable as well.
And premium is only available to signed up users.
Data, behaviour, and premium all need you to sign up to have value, and is how they make money.
Toothless_NEO@reddit
They do it to track users and because they want to funnel people into using the site and interacting.
BezzleBedeviled@reddit
If you have the link, you can still view FB pages without logging in.
They're corporate skinsuits worn by intelligence entities. (See the history of Lysander Spooner, who was shut down in the 19th Century for running competition to the government monopoly US Post Office. When all communication was in paper, postal services were your social-media, and so intelligence desired to own those. They didn't necessarily need to open and read your mail -- just knowing where you lived and who you wrote to and when allowed them to track the public very effectively.)
IAmQuiteHonest@reddit
Even Amazon requires a login just to read more than like 8 reviews now. I suspect websites also require it to prevent web crawlers and bots from scraping data off their site too.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Because that is the buisness model they choose to use.
Just as you are free to start your own platform with whatever rules and buisness model you choose.
It's called capitalism baby!
PolishBicycle@reddit
Your data