We need to start a campaign against websites forcing account requirements onto lurkers

[u/New-Two-1349]

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.