This. It's fundamentally a social problem. The moment that reader mode becomes the default, they'll start gradually extending it with "useful" additions until it's just as bloated and painful again, and then we'll have some rebrand of the concept of reader mode, and the cycle starts anew.
"Why can't we have a functional version of the site for the blind, and the normal one for everyone else?"
Sure, but that's a big if: "Oh, just this one small thing for interactivity would be nice ... and this other thing ..." just like with how the early web expanded functionality.
"Why can't we have a functional version of the site for the blind, and the normal one for everyone else?"
'We have that! It's called HTML!"
Edit: Earlier version of this point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224961