> improving the user experience was clearly not their priority

Basically. Reddit's updates are meant to drive ad engagement. The redesign makes it harder to browse without identifying yourself (requiring an account to see comments, making your online status visible by default). Pushing people to their app just means they can have unblockable ads and better analytics.

Clearly it's working, as 70-something percent of their traffic comes from apps now, and their advertising revenue has become significant enough to start talking about going public.

This is of course a cycle we've seen repeatedly with internet communities -- indie > popular > fully monetized.