Yes that would be a valid reason to make that request, but the commenter above was misleading people that they had to login, which is wrong.
To circumvent, you can put your browser into Private or Incognito browsing, and you can then read the post w/o logging in. (Which also logs you out of HN, so you can't comment or vote.)
So, for any of the HN audience with G+ accounts but who don't surf "logged in", a login is required unless the user takes extra steps (EDIT: such as incognito or child comment's noscript approach).