The dream of an open internet continues to die following the news that Reddit will begin forcing people to be logged in to an account in order to browse its trove of arcane user insights and discussions. The reason seems clear: Google AI overviews are robbing the platform blind.

“While extraordinarily useful and powerful, AI search solves a different problem than Reddit,” Reddit cofounder Steve Huffman told investors during the company’s quarterly earnings call this week. “AI does not fulfill people’s fundamental need for community, connection, and belonging with other people, and it lacks context and nuance.”

To help protect “the Reddit corpus of data,” the company will begin shifting to a “logged-in only experience.” Testing will begin in other countries in the fourth quarter before a switch is eventually flipped for every Reddit user everywhere beginning in 2027.…