IMO, it is not that the old reddit UI is very good, but the new reddit is just terrible.
I wonder how many percent of users are sticking with the old UI.
Iirc, the figures for some prominent subreddits were shared and it was like 10% old Reddit, 20% new Reddit, 40% first party apps, 30% third party apps
I keep hoping they'd disable this and shut the API to rif is fun, then I'd be able to quit Reddit permanently.
I kid, I kid.
But not really.
The new design is bad intentionally to improve their performance numbers, that it's still online and that the whole site didn't go the way of digg means they pretty much nailed it.
I'd say a big part of this is the atrocious performance