Ask HN: Require a sign-up or allow anonymous/guest users?

You should provide a good reason for visitor to become a user. never block everything for guests(like many websites out there), you should provide a great demo or any strong reason for people to become a user. That's clear nobody will fill forms and do activation process for just a sentence that you wrote on your home page. "Find Friends" - Signup "Live Chat" - Signup

Depends on the product I think, however I do enjoy apps that I can "tour" without signing up. Especially if the sign-up isn't quick.

If you can build value in your product without forcing me to login, I'm more likely to want your product more because I've been sold on it. I think thats important, I should want to sign-up. This could be via a product tour, guest account, even a demo video. Ultimately I'm window shopping so give me a reason to come inside.

No matter what though whether you allow anonymous users or require a sign-up, measure the funnel between guest-user and registration. Find out where your users are bouncing and where you could improve the onboarding. Is the homepage persuasive enough? Is the sign-up page itself losing users? Measure, iterate, and repeat. I'm sure there's quite a bit to learn.