Reddit CEO Steve Huffman Says Site Will Become 'Primarily Logged-In Experience' as AI Scraping Pressure Mounts

On Reddit's Q3 call, CEO Steve Huffman said the platform will 'evolve to being a primarily logged-in experience,' citing personalization, ad targeting, safety-regulation compliance, and AI-scraping protection as the four drivers. Tests begin 'in the coming months' in select non-US markets, with no countries named; traffic arriving from search and shared posts will still see content. The move extends 2026's anti-scraping campaign that shut unauthenticated JSON endpoints and ends new public-API access after October 31. Q3 revenue hit $895M (+53% YoY) but Q4 guide fell short and RDDT dropped 9%+ after hours.