This has been my experience as well. There are countless amazing, small communities on Reddit, and being able to kick the popular subreddits out of my feed makes it feel like one of the last places that embodies the spirit of the early internet. Namely -- small quasi-anonymous communities where people can sincerely discuss niche interests and discover new ones through the serendipity of interaction.

Once old.reddit.com gets turned off, I worry about how long this can persist. The iOS app has tons of clickbait hooks, useless notifications, invitations to join "similar" large, emotional subreddits full of toxicity and extremism.