It’s a way to dip their toe into being closed off. Right now it’s a “user choice” so some people can slowly build the wall while feeling good about “blocking AI scrapers” (they’ll get around it no problem) or “blocking stalkers” (they’ll get around it no problem) or “blocking [next week’s bogeyman]” and all of a sudden everyone has to make an account to interact with the website but it was oRgAnIc™