As search traffic dries up, Reddit announces it’s shifting to a logged-in experience
· Technology · TechCrunch, Engadget, Ars Technica
Reddit announced a shift to a primarily logged-in experience in its third-quarter earnings on Thursday, aiming to protect its data from AI scraping and forge licensing deals with model providers. The move comes as global daily active users remained flat at 130.3 million quarter-over-quarter, while U.S. daily users dropped from 53.2 million in Q2 to 50.7 million in Q3, a 2% year-over-year decline. Search traffic referrals fell by more than 1 million per week in October, and Reddit warned daily actives could decline by a low-double-digit percentage next quarter. Despite the user drop, revenue surged 53% year-over-year to $895 million, driven by a 54% increase in advertising revenue to $847 million and a 35% jump in non-advertising revenue to $48 million.
Why it matters
The shift to a logged-in experience could significantly impact advertisers and model providers, as logged-in users are typically more valuable to advertisers, potentially offsetting the user decline with higher ad rates. Meanwhile, U.S. users face declining daily active counts amid a broader industry shift to AI-powered search.
Read the original report — TechCrunch
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