I've always known it to work this way. Unless it's changed recently, it likely still does.

Is it possible you don't have reply notifications enabled?

Yeah. It works like that. At least it did as of a few weeks ago. I’ve since left Reddit, but I’m assuming it’s still the same.

I remember seeing people as far back as 5 or 6 years ago asking Reddit mods/admins to do something about it, but clearly they’re fine with it being that way and would rather perma-ban people for making easily provable mistakes.