Reddit has long attracted millions of users to its site through Google, with many even appending the word “Reddit” to their search queries for better answers. But as search traffic dries up amid the shift to AI-powered search, Reddit is rethinking its relationship with the open internet. In its third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, the company announced it’s transitioning to a primarily “logged-in experience.”
The move is designed to protect its data from AI scraping, allowing the company to instead forge lucrative licensing deals with model providers. But just as important, such a shift could help Reddit to increase its revenue even as it faces daily active user declines in its largest market, the U.S.
