I only use teddit.net to access reddit these days. On those odd occasions that I follow a link to the actual reddit site I'm reminded why I avoid it:

- Pop-up to download app

- Pop-up has been un-clearable on a number of occasions

- Having to click "read more" to see more than two posts

- Having to click a link to a new page to follow a thread more than two / three replies deep (and often finding that it's only a single, useless reply)

- Other progressively more trivial annoyances

The old interface actually solves all those issues. I used to be in disbelief how anybody could survive using the new design for more than 15 seconds but then realised that the way people use Reddit is completely different nowadays. It turned into some sort of 9gag/instagram amalgamation where people scroll through an endless feed of images, enabled by the instagram-like format that is the default with the new interface.

Indeed, the new design reflects the new direction the site is moving towards.

I cyncially feel like your third point is to save them on egress data. Better to send two comments for a post that quite a few people will never read the comments of.

Serving a few more lines of text is trivial, even at Reddit's scale. It is absolutely about making the mobile user experience worse for those who do not wish to download the app.

If they retired old.reddit then the only time I would browse reddit would be when I use my phone, which I only do when I have no computer to interact with or before bed.

If they then do the logical thing and block third party apps then I will just stop using reddit completely, because using the official app just isn't worth it.

Right there with you. There are a LOT of us. This is ostensibly why they've allowed old.reddit.com to live for so long despite almost no development and maintenance anymore. This IPO will probably be the catalyst for some "house cleaning." I imagine old.reddit.com is not long for this world.

I’d actually welcome that. I spend exactly 15 minutes a day on it, and getting rid of the old site would be just enough to cut the cord forever.

Among many bad features and bad coding, I somewhat recently found out the "new" reddit on desktop has a live chat option for some reason. I put in a 4/10 effort in looking to disable it but couldn't find it. It appears its only use is to receive real-time death threats, and to harass women from some of the screenshots I've seen.

There are a few alternative front ends tha uphold the spirit of the old UI. Both web based and mobile apps.

But they might of course try to shut them down as well.

Part of the problem is that different front ends encourage different types and levels of discourse.

Being able to chose to use a different front end only solves part of the problem.