> You can't generalise like this.

I have never met that other kind of user.

Even when it's a small detail completely embedded on the context of the page, people get annoyed by modals. AFAIK, that happens on the desktop too (with the single exception of things like app settings).

I do believe in pushing a more usable design despite users not liking it a few times. But those times have to be few, and thus, you have to get a lot of extra usability out of it. Modal details isn't such an important use case, so I do recommend to avoid unless you gather your own evidence (and any UI recommendation can be ignored if you gather your own evidence), even if they are better.

I do recommend a default to avoid almost all of the use-cases people are posting for modals:

- click to enlarge is much better done inline;

- alerts are that one thing where modals became a caricature, modal alerts are absolutely shit;

- confirmation prompts should be avoided as much as you can (yeah, if you can't, make a modal);

- the 2 minutes rule from the OP, nope, if it can't be done inline, you can put it in another page.

People who say "it depends", without also explaining what it depends on, are not worth listening to. Someone who advocates for a silver bullet solution to a problem is more helpful than someone who won't make any recommendation at all, because "it all depends".