How was reddit able to ascend to being the 'front page of the internet'?

So I clipped all my social media the past couple of weeks. Deactivated facebook and deleted twitter. Only sticking to YouTube and reddit because you can actually learn things on these sites and they feel more anonymous so am less inclined to get into arguments or whatever

The thing that keeps striking me after a few weeks of reddit usage is just... how terribly setup it is. It's SO BAD. Multiple clicks off one thread take me to entirely different places, sometimes it's the front page of the website, sometimes it's that specific subreddit. Replying to a specific thread is so utterly impossible sometimes, I have to click into my mentions up at the top right and then show a parent comment.

How was this designed so poorly and how has it become so widely accepted as acceptable. The UI for GameFAQs messageboards that have been around since the early 2000s are a thousand times better.