Faced with the sweep of AI-integrated search engines causing a serious decline in natural traffic, Reddit has just officially made a historic turning point when preparing to tighten content viewing rights and force users to log in.

When AI search engines "suck" traffic

Things started to get worse when major search engines around the world simultaneously upgraded their interfaces and integrated AI to directly answer users' questions right on the platform. This change caused millions of people to no longer have a reason to click on the original articles on Reddit like before, causing the platform's traffic to decline dramatically.

In the most recent quarterly financial report, CEO Steve Huffman bitterly admitted the fact that current AI models do not bring any traffic to content creation platforms like Reddit. The fundamental change in the way search engines operate has pushed Reddit into an unprecedented revenue crisis, forcing the board of directors to immediately hold an emergency meeting to find solutions to defend themselves.

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman claims Google's AI search engine is the main reason Reddit lost about $7 billion in just 2 days. Reddit's CEO is very disappointed in Google and shares candidly about the recent state of online search: "The reality is, AI doesn't bring traffic. Not just for us, but for anyone, as far as I know. It's just a fundamental change in the way Google works."

The company also reported that search traffic had "dropped significantly" in the latest quarter, with visits falling by more than 1 million per week in October.

In addition, realizing that its huge store of knowledge resources is being exploited by large technology corporations for free without providing commensurate exchange value, Reddit is also starting to review all AI training data sharing agreements.

Build a "firewall" to close the system

Immediately after identifying the root cause of the traffic decline, CEO Steve Huffman issued a letter to shareholders announcing a shocking decision. It's transforming Reddit into a mandatory login platform. Under this scenario, current or non-account users will be completely blocked from access and unable to view any content on the website.

"A key part of retaining new users is switching Reddit to logged-in-only mode," Huffman wrote in his letter to shareholders. "Switching to requiring a login will ensure users have the best Reddit experience possible, and can find the content and communities that are most relevant to them."

Reddit decided to launch a test campaign in select international markets before applying it on a global scale. The company's leadership is carefully calculating the timing of issuing mandatory login requests for users accessing from shared links or search engines, to find the most appropriate line between user experience and data protection goals.

This drastic step immediately created a solid technical barrier, making it impossible for AI companies' automatic data scanning machines to freely collect information without permission. At the same time, forcing users to identify themselves also helps Reddit collect more valuable data signals to serve advertising, while also meeting increasingly strict legal regulations on age.

"This is better for our business because we will have more signals to target ads, and logging in often leads to higher engagement," he wrote. "It also allows us to protect access to Reddit's incredibly valuable trove of data, and helps us better adapt to emerging regulations around the world."

Huffman doesn't explicitly mention age verification laws, but requiring users to log in would presumably help the company comply with those measures.

Market reaction and restructuring to adapt

Reddit's decision to block content immediately sparked intense controversy from the long-time user community and technology observers. Many people expressed dissatisfaction when the open knowledge database, which was originally meant to be a community, has now been turned into a "closed area" serving commercial purposes and collecting personal data.

Faced with a wave of fierce protests, Reddit's leadership quickly took steps to calm the situation and retain users in the new ecosystem. The company is committed to improving the main bulletin board interface in a more scientific and consistent direction, and will research integrating a private browsing mode to serve users who want to search for sensitive information without having their history saved.

Despite facing countless challenges and the risk of disrupting user habits, this series of developments reflects an irreversible reality of the digital era. The escape from the open web model to erect data protection firewalls is becoming the only way to help media empires survive the bottomless sweep of artificial intelligence./

Thien Minh