TIL about it after reading this post. It seems to have started around 17/April

From the article:

a login barrier for reading does not really stop AI scrapers because bots can be equipped with accounts within a few minutes. Instead, many suspect that Amazon’s main aim is to increase the number of registered users. After all, those who are logged in can be tracked better – and can be provided with more targeted recommendations and advertising.

Are there open source alternatives to it?

    • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
      11·
      21 days ago

      Wikipedia doesn’t offer user reviews, however.

      I do read Wikipedia before I bother reading IMDb – even before today –, though.

      • inari@piefed.zipEnglish
        4·
        21 days ago

        I just head to the Reception section and check the Rotten Tomatoes reviews

        • tomenzgg@midwest.socialEnglish
          2·
          15 days ago

          Haha; I had a friend, in college, who saw me use it one time and just paused before going, “Hate that.”

          I saw its use in an older document/manuscript, originally (I want to say that the writer was from ~1800s?), and thought it was a sensible enough means of handling when you’ve got two sentence fragments right next to each other; been using it, ever since.