When Reddit started doing this it effectively broke my redditing habit. I know these things are annoying but for anyone who is trying to use social media less... Twitter, Reddit, and Instagram are almost unusable without their apps. They are basically useless if you dont sign in on the browser on your phone. It's great if you want to get off them.
I almost hesitate to share these because I too found that Reddit's dark patterns were a large part of what helped me break that habit. I recently discovered teddit.net which is a frontend for reddit with all dark patterns removed. There is also an alternative front end for twitter called nitter.net that you can use the same way to avoid the app / login.
Will mention though that I’ve had wholly uncontroversial HN accounts, with positive karma, deleted after suggesting teddit.net, only stating a link to the about page, in a thread.
I am mostly unbothered by it since the bar of entry for creating an account on HN is so low, and you can read it without one, but am still confused.
Perhaps there is auto moderation that deletes an account if it posts a comment with only a link?