You have to have an account to read IMDB reviews now

AI scrapers have ruined everything.

IMdb deleted all their message boards in 2017 [1], which also included ALOT of user reviews, more than the Reviews section on the site.

Fortunately MovieChat.org took up archiving as much as it could of the old content, and up to today providing the same 'style' of community engagement as the old boards. I wonder if they'll do the same for User Reviews.

There's even a userscript [2] that seamlessly puts an embed of the equivalent MovieChat board (if available) for each IMdb entry, right in the site section where the old IMdb boards used to be.

I assume you can make an account on MC and still participate in all those (their) boards.

I'll admit though-- probably like many, I came to the old IMdb boards just before the deletion, and to be honest they were kinda shitty. Sorry. Alot of trollposting and lack of seriousness when someone tried to have a serious discussion about some work. But it was overall and mostly Fun!

The MovieChat boards still have much of that old content - take a look and enjoy.

[1] https://wikipedia.org/wiki/IMDb#Message_boards

[2] https://greasyfork.org/scripts/27617-new-imdb-message-boards...

I recommend anyone to use email aliasing and perhaps the Mullvad browser (if every fucking website using browser fingerprinting is getting a little tiring). These companies are just trying to suck up as much data as possible and ruin the web.

Email aliasing prevents spam or linking of your emails by giving you a seperate email address to give to each service. When that service inevitably leaks your data, the leaked address can be shut off if it is being spammed and won't be linked to your other accounts or identity for fishing and hacking.

DuckDuckGo has a free one with great integrations into Bitwarden as well as a standalone extension[1] for managing them. If you have iCloud+ Apple has an email aliasing service called Hidemyemail. There are also some good paid options here[2].

[1]https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/qwacky/kieehbhdbinc...

[2] https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email-aliasing/

this closing down of the web, which began with FB, has taken another step during twitter's demise into what it is now