> I do wonder if this scheme was introduced to monetize users
Probably. As a shareholder I get it. The site needs to make money so it can keep providing the service it provides. And ads are the best way to do that.
I also get it from a development standpoint. It takes effort to maintain a frontend, and maintaining two of them takes twice as much effort. With limited resources, I can see why it makes sense to focus on the mobile interface and let the web interface fall by the wayside.
I'm not entirely sure I'd have made a different decision if I still worked there. I don't know enough about the internal structure or costs or revenue to say for sure.
I can say that I know the people in charge, and they are good people, and if this is the choice they made, it was probably for good reason.
They want to redirect users from a relatively open platform they can't control (e.g. adblockers, browser extensions) to one they can control but for some reason can't manage properly (mobile app).
Seriously, the number of times the Reddit app hasn't worked but Apollo has is kind of ridiculous.
