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

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:

未来，你将无法在不登录的情况下使用 Reddit。Reddit 首席执行官史蒂夫·霍夫曼（Steve Huffman）在今天致股东的一封关于第三季度业绩的信（PDF）中证实了这一即将到来的变化。他表示，Reddit 正在转向“仅限登录的体验”，并补充道：

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.

转向以登录为主的模式将确保我们的用户获得尽可能最好的 Reddit 体验，并能找到与他们最相关的内容和社区。这对我们的业务更有利，因为我们将拥有更多用于广告定位的信号，而且登录通常会带来更高的参与度。它还使我们能够保护对 Reddit 极具价值的数据语料库的访问，并帮助我们更好地适应世界各地不断涌现的法规。

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.”

霍夫曼还表示，登录要求将有助于 Reddit 更好地留住新用户。Reddit 将在第四季度开始在“选定的”非美国市场测试这一登录要求。据霍夫曼称，公司将利用这些测试来决定“全球”范围内的仅限登录版 Reddit 将是什么样子。“几乎所有主要的广告平台都经历了这一转变。我们感到兴奋并正在迅速行动，”这位首席执行官补充道，并指出 Reddit 的目标是成为“每个互联网用户的日常习惯”。

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 by more than 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.

霍夫曼写道，这一即将实施的要求出台之际，Reddit 的搜索引荐流量在“第三季度出现了显著下降”。受影响最大的是未登录用户和网页流量，且这一总体趋势已持续到第四季度。“在十月份，我们观察到搜索流量平均每周下降超过 100 万次引荐。如果这种下降速度持续下去，目前的趋势表明，第四季度的总日活跃独立用户数（DAUq）可能会比我们目前 1.3 亿的基数下降低两位数的百分比，”霍夫曼写道。

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.

Reddit 的平均日活跃独立用户数在第三季度同比增长了 12%。霍夫曼表示，他希望 Reddit 减少对搜索引荐的依赖。“已登录用户和应用端日活跃用户是我们最有价值的用户，也是我们关注的重点，”他写道。据用户报告，Reddit 至少从八月份开始就在桌面端测试登录要求。

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.

登录要求是 Reddit 在过去几年中为扩大网站和移动应用用户群而做出的众多改变之一，这些改变也使得追踪用户活动变得更加容易。今年早些时候，Reddit 开始测试一项要求，即用户必须使用其移动应用程序才能访问其移动网站。它计划扩大测试范围。“目前只有约 13% 符合条件的用户看到了应用转换提示，因此这还有扩展空间，”霍夫曼说。

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.

截至七月，Reddit 要求用户必须登录才能使用 Old.Reddit.com。最近，它还阻止了过去六个月内未登录的用户访问 Old Reddit。Reddit 还在 2024 年通过提高 API 价格，有效地关闭了大多数第三方应用程序。综合来看，这些变化将使 Reddit 更容易了解谁在使用 Reddit 以及原因，公司称这将有助于管理人工智能抓取和不断变化的搜索习惯等问题。

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.

这些变化还有助于 Reddit 了解广告效果并获得对用户活动的额外洞察，同时使其对广告商和投资者更具吸引力。Reddit 报告称，第三季度净收入为 2.83 亿美元（同比增长 74%），营收为 8.95 亿美元（同比增长 53%）。拥有 Ars Technica 母公司康泰纳仕（Condé Nast）的 Advance Publications 是 Reddit 的最大股东。