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  • WoodScientist@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    19 days ago

    They don’t even try to lie effectively. Why in Hell’s name would you need to log in to “keep reddit safe” just to lurk?

    • Taleya@aussie.zoneEnglish
      1·
      18 days ago

      Easier to track users and produce verifiable "x potential viewers " to present to advertisers.

      They’ve wanted to kill old.reddit for a while. It doesn’t support advertisers or tracking the way they want. Also RES is still a thing on it. They’re too chickenshit to do so though, since the actual content generators and knowledgebase still use it. This is another attempt to slip the noose tighter

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      19 days ago

      My only guess is because they want to force AI scrapers to pay for access. And most scrapers probably work best on old.reddit because they keep changing new Reddit’s layout. As a programmer, if you’re going to code something to access a site, (and you don’t want to constantly have to rework it every time they make a small UI update) you’re going to use the version that never changes. So by forcing them to log in, it makes tracking the individual users (and thus, identifying potential unauthorized scraper accounts) easier.

      • AlteredEgo@lemmy.mlEnglish
        1·
        19 days ago

        But can’t you use very simple agentic AI to constantly update the code for web scrapers on new reddit? From what I understand that is the kind of coding LLM can do well and you can just unit test for errors and feed it back to the LLM until it works. Even requiring accounts, creation can be automated using LLMs too.

        This sounds like it a loosing proposition and will only piss off hardcore users. Not that this would stop them. But I don’t think protection from web scrapers is a good explanation. Probably it’s just enshittification, forcing users to use their new interface to optimize business metrics. Someone is going to get a bonus because they improved the short sighted metrics.

    • 🌞 Alexander Daychilde 🌞@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      19 days ago

      It’s up to you on whether you believe it or not. But the reasons they’re giving are that they’ve got protections going on when you access new Reddit that they aren’t able to implement on Old Reddit. Again, this is coming from the announcement from the Reddit admins. It sounds plausible to me and I really don’t care to argue this. I’m just passing along what they actually said.