[Zolomon]

This is not true, this change is a recent phenomenon, I believe it came into effect sometime around 2021-2023 (maybe earlier even). I believe it changed when OpenAI showed the value of data.

Before, there was no problem using Instagram or Twitter while not logged in. Now there is a dark pattern that forces you to create an account, or log in.

[mattmanser]

Instagram's been a pita to use without a login for years, they've recently got even worse though.

[dylan604]

This is my recollection as well when they all realized they were feeding the bots that the free use became broken

[jelder]

My recollection is that this happened pretty much immediately after Twitter became X.

[saagarjha]

No, it was a test by some misguided PM who was looking at her signups metric and not much else. It rolled out, everyone hated it, it got rolled back after some senior people complained. When Elon took over they turned the feature back on and then evidently rewrote it to be even more annoying and we have what is in place today. Source: my comments against it are probably in Slack somewhere if Elon is still paying for that

[KronisLV]

That’s roughly when I stopped opening Twitter links, I still sometimes see posts from that platform, but mostly just as screenshots and with the discussions elsewhere. I don’t care for their dark patterns.

[hnlmorg]

People already knew the value of data long before LLMs were popularised and web scraping has been a thing since the very beginnings of the web.

Why you’re describing isn’t a recent phenomenon. Not even remotely.

Facebook has never allowed people read only views to their platform. And Expert Stack Overflow like Quora used the same dark patterns you described too.

[hnlmorg]

Getting down voted for stating a fact. Just goes to show how short some people’s memories are.

[jeroenhd]

Instagram has always redirected me to a login page. Twitter only did after Elon and his friends went batshit ruining the website.

[dylan604]

Following an Insta link gives me a dismissible login modal, but still shows the linked page when dismissed. Following any link becomes login only unless you right click to open link in new. Now it does the same previous behavior. I don’t use Insta, only when every now and then someone sends me a link with what looks like might be some other interesting post, but the game becomes boring and and I just close the tab

[nxor]

Best comment.