"The app is great because the website is heavily degraded".
For example, seemingly a bunch of places in Europe/elsewhere has disabled old.reddit.com unless you're logged in, but seemingly a bunch of people in other places can use it just fine. I'm sure what both of you are seeing is both correct, there is just something changing the experience that gets served to each of you.
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First time I've ever seen it. No clear way to bypass it either.