OPENA/chatgpt recently started using reddit less and less, on thier references so there was a drop in traffic, thats why reddit panicked and started forcing the logins, they need new actual users to generate content, and not AI slop. Banning people left and right last year dint help them at all. and now people are afraid to login and lurk instead, they are tyring to force lurkers to login to an account to use.