The most disrespectful pattern I encounter regularly on reddit is that it forgets that I want the nicer, more compact interface. There will come a day when they remove it entirely, clearly, and that will be the end of my reddit usage, more or less.
There's a handy browser extension for automatically redirecting you if you click a link to Reddit's other domains: https://github.com/tom-james-watson/old-reddit-redirect
If you'd like to disable custom subreddit styles even if you're not signed in, you can add these custom filters to uBlock Origin:
old.reddit.com##^link[ref="applied_subreddit_stylesheet"]
old.reddit.com##^#header-img-a
old.reddit.com##^.infobar.listingsignupbarhttps://pastebin.com/raw/niGCX6AH
Then Mozilla had to go and fuck up extensions on mobile firefox, so now I simply avoid Reddit from phone. On totally unrelated note, I suddenly find myself with extra free time!
Besides which, applying a UserScript requires a much larger "full extension". I'd much rather have a small purpose-built extension which is, via browser-enforced policy, only allowed to run on the specific domains for which it is required.
I audited the code, installed it, turned off updates, and it has faithfully served me for a while now.
To each their own, I suppose.
This is an assumption that I'd had until I read feedback from users who joined reddit after introduction of the new reddit design, that old reddit web interface is ugly. Well, I think reddit knows better than us. They have the data!
I've found that the former does sometimes redirect me to the garbage mobile version when I click on a thread (even while logged in), but the latter persists as long as the setting is enabled in my account.
I don't know how to explain why many people say "this never happens to me" and other people say "this happens frequently."
While I'm on the subject, another grey pattern the article missed is the button to opt out of the redesign on mobile. When clicking the hamburger menu there used to be a button at the bottom called (iirc) "Opt out of Redesign." The same option exists today except they've moved it into a Settings submenu and renamed it "Request desktop site" which implies it's a temporary change.
Lastly, if you search you'll find threads where people say the web pages are sometimes rendered without any opt out button. I just opened an incognito window to test this and I simply cannot find a button to revert to the old design, even when using my mobile browser's Desktop Mode. So unless a visitor knows about old.reddit.com they are forced to use the new design.