Not your parent, but I know of no mobile app that allows me certain enhancements that are simply standard on my (mobile) web browser: tabs, ad-blocking, & accessibility.
Tabs: because I multi-task, and I compartmentalise my reading. If all I have is an app, then the app either needs to re-invent tabs within it (none I've found so far) or I am forced to have at-most one post/thread I could be reading. The latter is particularly bad. Extra bad when it happens automatically: say I pause reading a post, go to a different app/website, and click on a reddit link there.
Add Firefox's Containers to the mix and the 'Tabs!' benefit becomes even better.
Ad-blocking: Need I say more? Well, more than blocking ads, the general ability to block annoying (highly so in the case of reddit) elements of a page using uBlock Origin or uMatrix. RES doesn't yet work on the mobile web (likely due to the lack of popularity of mobile browsers that _do_ support add-ons), but if it did, I absolutely would use it.
Accessibility: I can print, copy, link to, search in, or have read aloud any page or part of any page on the web. I haven't yet seen a Ctrl+F equivalent in a reddit app, but my mobile browser has Find In Page.
This is compared to the Washington Post mobile app, which is essentially a wrapper around the mobile site that prevents copying text, has annoying ads despite being a subscriber, and has no redeeming functionality.
> some people stick to third-party apps to evade Reddit's tactics
Guess what goes away next.
(My bet is old.reddit first, because no one supports two versions of a site for the same platform—other than for accessibility.)
https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/cfmlca/i_build_the_a...
Apollo (iOS) provides a nice and clean design, as does Joey (Android) which copies the style of the former. Even on the desktop, the experience is smooth and manageable, by using uMatrix and RES, whether you are browsing old.reddit or not. I don't understand the hesitancy in using these enhancements to enrich your user experience.