[mothered]

but surely this will make no difference except invite a lot of new joiners who will abandon their account after seeing the content?

I certainly agree, and why I posted my comment as per below.

It'll force user-registrations

It's not possible to speak for every registered user, but In my view, If they're solely signing up to view the content, then most likely that's the purpose of their registration. No doubt many will navigate around this board and become active users, but for the most part, I think their stay will be short-lived.