The company confirmed to me that it is moving in a direction that other platforms have taken: converting users to the app. Reddit says that the test aims to find out if people like me—those who use the service but aren’t generally logged in—get a better experience with the app.
What the hell did this generation of social media companies think was going to happen? They squandered their potential by suffocating the communities they allowed in to prove the point that they could make their users go onto an app and that this would be good for shareholder value.
They won the battle, lost the war and then destroyed the kingdom from losing the war so badly.