Why require registration for read access?

[#1]

More a question, although I would suggest changing this.

Why require a subscription to read community information. Im on several websites like this and all allow full read access (sure perhaps not on some user groups or beta sections). Here you get one topic to read and then you gotta login.

[#2]

The required registration after reading a post was implemented several years ago as part of an overall plan to do things that would encourage increasing customer engagement. The logic was that if a member is logged in they would be more likely to post and reply to posts.  I will escalate your post to the community team to consider increasing the number of posts that can be read before requiring registration or to eliminate the requirement completely.