It's also where you receive a lightweight, fast, to the point version.

Admittedly, it's not just "m", but If I _must_ use Facebook the only bearable version is mbasic.facebook.com

It’s certainly not true in the case of Reddit. Their mobile site is horrible by any measure, way slower than the old desktop site.

But they want you to use the app anyway, so they don't put effort into the web version.

m. is where you find a lightweight, no-bullshit version of a site that doesn't load excessive images or Flash or JS before required.

I want to know I'm on a faster version of a website.

(Seriously, mbasic.facebook.com allows chat, whereas m.facebook.com reminds you to install the Facebook app.)

You're the second person recently to lament mobile sites on HN. I think they're great. Responsive isn't there yet.

Some of them are great. Some of them do incomprehensible shit like loading text in chunks while scrolling, making it impossible to scroll to the end of an article without waiting 5-10 seconds for it to appear.

(This might be a result of my using a content blocker to block mobile ads, but the fact that it’s even possible infuriates me as a user. I mean, it’s text! Just show me the text!)

I agree with you 100% that responsive design isn’t there yet.

I'm in the "basic usually better" camp too, but this doesn't matter, as we're all in agreement here! We want to know whether we're on the "better" or "worse" version of the site, for whatever each of us mean by "better" or "worse".

Some sites look absolutely terrible on a wide monitor when they are designed for a narrow mobile screen.

I must say that m.twitter.com is a better desktop website than twitter.com itself.