Your rebuttal is false and the parent is accurate. Reddit will throw up a full screen interstitial on most popular subreddits preventing even viewing and redirect you to download the app. This is on the mobile (not old.reddit desktop-only) site. Their UX is shite and full of dark patterns.
If you log in, the mobile site is perfectly usable. You might also have to set a preference as well (like the old.reddit preference). It has been so many years of using it this way I don't remember.
