- Sources: cole-k writeup, HN 49005747
- Summary: A widely discussed 2026-07-21 writeup reports that Reddit now requires a logged-in account to browse old.reddit.com, ending the anonymous logged-out experience on the legacy interface. Reddit's stated reason is that the logged-out old interface is a significant source of abusive scraping and automated traffic. There is no separate Reddit engineering announcement this digest could verify, and users in the thread corroborate the change.
- Comments: HN commenters connect the move to Reddit's paid AI-licensing deals with OpenAI and Google and to the earlier shutdown of third-party API clients, and note privacy-focused and no-account readers lose access. One commenter argues the framing overstates it and that retiring a second interface is largely a maintenance decision.
- Why it matters: Logged-out old.reddit is a common path for anonymous reading and third-party tooling, so gating it behind login narrows unauthenticated access to Reddit content.
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