They have made it quite clear that they want readers to pay for the content they access. I know, you said "require," which implies that you think they should make it nigh-impossible for you to read without paying. But this is not a legal distinction. They want you to pay. You know this.

they want both SEO juice and to impose a limit on how many free articles you can read. They're going to be forced to come up with a more sophisticated solution to enforce their paywall instead of the half-baked one they have right now.