> I'm not sure they're too interested in funnels, beyond letting people have a little fun (and some advertising that something like the Bell Labs of old might still exist).

I picked the word funnel because I'm on HN and that's the quickest way to convey that showing me a signup screen before I've done anything of value is going to lose me. Unless I clicked a button to sign up or went to do something that I have an intuition would result in a signup page, I usually click control-w before I'm conscious of why.

Most users don't care about leaderboards and global leaderboards have been shown to have a demotivating effect. There's a reason why most games that show leaderboards now default to a friends leaderboard, with the global one tucked away behind it.

Forcing a signup to enable something I don't care about doesn't seem like a great bargain to me. Prompt me to sign up in order to save my progress and I might do it. Prompt me as soon as I interact with the page and I'm out.