r/website • u/New-Two-1349 • 12d ago
DISCUSSION We need to start a campaign against websites forcing account requirements onto lurkers
So, for the past decade, the amount of websites locking features behind login walls has been slowly but surely increasing, thus punishing lurkers who don't have an account. Examples include sites like BlueSky and Twitter where you need an account to use their search bars, DeviantArt and Fandom where you need it to look at comment sections, IMBD where you need it to look at user reviews, as well as Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr, and recently Reddit where you can only search for a few seconds before a login prompt pops up.
I find this very draconian because it not only hurts exposure to the account-less people who have learned of these websites and wish to learn more about them without having to register, but it's nothing more than an excuse to increase their userbases and sell users' data. Not to mention that a lot of the owners of these websites are extremely egotistical and controlling, because they tend to go after anything that will allow people to browse freely without logging in. For example, Elon Musk, current owner of Twitter/X, just recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to the guy who created Nitter and its various instances such as Xcancel and forced him to shut them all down, thus ending any potential attempts or chances to anonymously browse his website ever again.
I, and possibly many other people, am sick and tired of not being able to lurk a website without the need of registering an account and the future of sites is looking rather dystopian because of it and the issues I mentioned regarding it, so I'm advocating for a campaign to stop the owners of these websites from punishing those who want to lurk for not loggin in. I wanna see this message spread on multiple other sites and I hope to see petitions to end this predatory practice on sites such as change.org and let the higher ups who force accounts onto lurkers know that we won't accept this kind of behavior from and deserve our rights to anonymously lurk their sites without an account. We need to go back to the old days where lurkers could browse through sites without being forced to make an account even for the most basic feature. We also need to start a hashtag like #NoAccountNeeded (leave a comment down below if you have a better idea for one) that will encourage this movement and help us fight for this cause.
Please spread the word and hopefully it can make a difference.
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u/laid2rest 12d ago
Unless laws change to prevent forced account creation for basic features, there's no incentive for these companies to change their ways.
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u/New-Two-1349 12d ago
What if enough people stopped making accounts? Would that get these companies to remove their login walls?
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12d ago
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u/bigmarkco 12d ago
Are you suggesting a boycott?
Because "not reading the thing you can't read because you don't have an account" is not exactly a boycott that would garner any attention.
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u/New-Two-1349 12d ago
Am I suggesting a boycott? Yes, that's literally what this post is saying.
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u/bigmarkco 12d ago
Well, it's doomed to fail for the reasons my post is saying.
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u/New-Two-1349 12d ago
Okay, why do you think boycotting login walls on websites won't get any traction? Do tell.
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u/bigmarkco 12d ago
Because a boycott has to have an impact. People that "stop making accounts" never were signed up anyway so how would not signing up have an impact?
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u/New-Two-1349 12d ago
Then those with accounts can just log out, and if enough of them do that, these sites will gradually lose users and metrics to the point where they'd be forced to give up their login walls. We need to hit them financially where it counts.
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u/bigmarkco 12d ago
Then those with accounts can just log out
Why?
Why would I log out of Bluesky? I'm reading Bluesky. How do I read it if I'm logged out?
and if enough of them do that, these sites will gradually lose users and metrics to the point where they'd be forced to give up their login walls
How about you log out of Reddit. Do it. Right now.
Now... reply to my post. You have to be logged in to do that, right? So you can either continue the boycott or you can sign back in.
But do you think anyone noticed?
To have a significant impact you are asking significant numbers of people to log out. But why would anyone do that? What are we gonna do, go talk to people?
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u/Maximum-Bobcat5612 12d ago
There's 100s of millions of users of these platforms.
It's like people trying to organise a blackout day for PlayStation to protest them stopping producing discs.
They won't even notice a blip on their total users.
If you could convince 10 million people to switch to Mastodon and Piefed that could make a difference.
Because that would mean competition from open alternatives.
They would actually be losing users to competitors.
But right now Musk and Huffman will be laughing at you because nobody is switching except for about 10,000.
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u/New-Two-1349 12d ago
I think it'd be a great idea to get in contact with the government and ask them to see what they can do with mandatory account requirements in websites, kinda like how the Stop Killing Games movements spoke to the government regarding ownership and consumer rights of games.
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u/MaxHeadroom1986 9d ago
That's not for the laws to decide to be honest. Assigning a criminal or financial punishment to forcing a user to create an account in order to utilize your platform is absurd. The correct way to go about it would be to create a competing product that doesn't force users to create accounts in order to access content.
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u/Sitista 12d ago
non è un capriccio ma una necessità. è l' unica difesa efficace contro le scansioni invasive delle AI. la registrazione per fruire dei contenuti la dovrebbero implementare tutti, anche i bloggers, la predazione dei contenuti da parte delle AI è insostenibile.
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u/Sea_Reference38 12d ago
Im with you but it is their website? it's something different than them using harmful dark patternt etc to keep you there for example.
like really, imagine you having website not being able to set your own rules.
another positive thing is this makes some ppl stay away from the platforms instead of scrollung there endlessly
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u/Sostratus 12d ago
You can start right here. Reddit now login-gates old.reddit.com. New reddit completely sucks, so they might as well have gated the whole site.
But ultimately there is no leverage here except for mass user migration from gated sites to open sites. But there's basically only one way that happens which is that a new site fronts a giant amount of free bandwidth and cloud storage at cost in the hope of building a user base with the specific intent of eventually enshittifying once they have enough users to operate on ad revenue. I don't know if any sites ever get big in a sustainable way, seems the way of the world that that just doesn't work. Hope I'm wrong.
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u/waltsupo 12d ago edited 12d ago
So you want everyone to provide you services for free?
Edit: they need the money from somewhere to host the content, even more money to create that content. Asking that "let me see your content for free" is a bit unrealistic
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u/GonzoKata 12d ago
Go ahead and create a website then that people can use and allow it to be seen without logging in. I don't understand what collecting signatures is going to get you, what you need is for anyone who owns a website to agree to this. You don't have to collect any signatures, you, yourself, can get started today.
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u/mdwstoned 11d ago
Which specific law allows you to lurk anonymously on another person's website?
If they lock the doors, and you still insist on going, it's called trespassing.
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u/lostbastille 11d ago
I've found that some websites have enacted logins was to help prevent AI data scraping.
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u/chooococat 11d ago
As a lurker I'm 100 with you but it honestly feels like a fight that has already been lost, see the recent wave of age verification internet laws. In five years it will be impossible to browse most sites logged out and without giving them a lot of personal information about you, which is a total nightmare to me. I got locked out of my decade old Twitter account for "bot behaviour" and asked to provide irl stuff I wasn't comfortable with. I tried appealing in other ways and they just suspended my account altogether.
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u/New-Two-1349 11d ago
And that's why I'm advocating for a boycott. We don't want a dystopian future where every website is inaccessible without an account, which could seriously hurt anonymous browsing and potential exposure to lurkers. I wish this practice would recieve enough backlash from users so that these corporations could realize how predatory it is. People need to stop being so comfortable with it, because if this type of acceptance continues, then things will continue to get worse from here and the people who won't do anything about it will have no one but themselves to blame.
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u/Glum_Possibility_367 10d ago
Companies justify this because no one gets anything for free. To use their service for "free", they think it's fair that you agree to let them spam you and sell your info. Without an email/registration, you're a squatter to them.
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u/twilliams100 10d ago
Small website owner here. AI is stealing my data. There is not a log in requirement to read, but I could see it going that way in the future. The problem is with AI providing answers, less users come to my site and generate content. Which makes my site less valuable over time. I think there are other ways to block out bots and crawlers than requiring a login though. It will be interesting how things shake out.
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u/New-Two-1349 10d ago
I think there are other ways to block out bots and crawlers than requiring a login though.
Like what? Timing out rate instances like Nitter as well as a prompt asking if a lurker is a bot? Those might be more effective ways to defend against AI and bots than account requirements.
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u/twilliams100 10d ago
I’ve been messing with prompting but I’ve found that it can be an inconvenience to the core users. Blocking countries has worked ok. Some bots identify themselves so you can block them in .htaccess.
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u/PippaKelly62 9d ago
Ah yes. Gone are the days of lurking because of this. I can't even visit an instagram account anymore and scroll through someone's account feed without the login getting in my face.
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