[durnygbur]

I figure there are two main reasons. First are aggressive bots and scrappers, here the login walls are only a side effect. Everyone wants to be "smart" and takes but no one gives. Second are marketing and managers demanding more tracking and profiling. This is the New Internet for now, I don't see any seeds of paradigm change at this stage. Users will adapt unfortunately, at most they'll be pissed off by losing track of how many accounts they are signed in to.