I think a big issue with the new design is the trust issue I/people have that stem from Reddit's other design efforts. Take the mobile website. It looks a lot nicer than the desktop site, but is completely unuseable on a lower end (but current) android device - because instead of showing content immediately it does some javascript client rendering and shows some loading screen, and that regularly takes 10-20 seconds on bigger comment threads. At the same time there is still i.reddit.com, an ugly mobile site seemingly from way back when sites started to make dedicated iPhone-targeting mobile variants, and that one is as fast as a site can be. Actually usable.
On mobile, if you visit the reddit site, they push a "use the app"-banner in your face. Every goddamn time.
When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. I did not necessarily agree with that, I thought and think the new profile sites are fine in general. But what definitely was an issue was the performance. Again some javascript client rendering leading to loading indicators, even on the desktop. They improved loading times after that, but still.
So one big point of the new design is not actually "how will it look", but whether they will get the functionality/UX right. HN does, without client side rendering and redesigns...
On mobile, if you visit the reddit site, they push a "use the app"-banner in your face. Every goddamn time.
When they redesigned the profiles recently there was a lot of pushback. I did not necessarily agree with that, I thought and think the new profile sites are fine in general. But what definitely was an issue was the performance. Again some javascript client rendering leading to loading indicators, even on the desktop. They improved loading times after that, but still.
So one big point of the new design is not actually "how will it look", but whether they will get the functionality/UX right. HN does, without client side rendering and redesigns...