I'm not sure about that. On the one hand, they might mistakenly think that this will drive engagement by encouraging people to sign up for accounts. On the other, a lot of their traffic comes from Google searches by people who are looking for a specific solution to a specific problem, and losing that Google traffic would hurt their metrics even more.
What I could see them doing is something like:
1. Allow anonymous browsing of the default front page
2. If you want to browse through to someone's profile, or browse a subreddit, or maybe even seeing the comments section entirely in some cases, you need to log in
Pinterest did a great-slash-horrible approach, where you can see a result on Google image search, you can click through to it, but if you want to actually see where it came from or get any useful information (like browsing the board the poster put it in) then you need to log in. Pinterest has done a great job of weaponizing their user's posted (or, more commonly, stolen) content against the internet as a whole, and even though Reddit fucks up everything they touch I can imagine them trying something similar.
reddit already blocked being able to select text and use the right click menu to do anything. It immediately de-selects text. The walled garden is coming
I have one Reddit account that allows me to log into it but won’t let me do anything without providing an email address. The account is over 10 years old but the request for an email address happened about the time they announced the new charges for accessing their api. I am not certain there is a cause and effect but there certainly is a time line correlation. I can easily see them blocking unregistered user access which is essentially what a non-email address account is.
What I could see them doing is something like:
1. Allow anonymous browsing of the default front page
2. If you want to browse through to someone's profile, or browse a subreddit, or maybe even seeing the comments section entirely in some cases, you need to log in
Pinterest did a great-slash-horrible approach, where you can see a result on Google image search, you can click through to it, but if you want to actually see where it came from or get any useful information (like browsing the board the poster put it in) then you need to log in. Pinterest has done a great job of weaponizing their user's posted (or, more commonly, stolen) content against the internet as a whole, and even though Reddit fucks up everything they touch I can imagine them trying something similar.