Personally, I dislike infinite scroll, unless I am looking at photos. What bothers me most is how the proportion of my scrolling changes if I unwittingly venture too close to the bottom.
I think infinite scroll is better for an experiential platform, not a transaction-based one. Haven't you ever gone home without peanut butter because what the fuck, chunky, low-fat, sugar-free, swirled with jelly, goddamn, I just wanted some fuckin' peanut butter? I once sought an orange dress in size 8 on Etsy and bought nada, because there were too many options. Infinite scroll would have made it worse, not better. Users looking to buy want what they have in mind or want to stumble across something perfect, they don't want to see 10,000,000 other things they DON'T want to buy. Infinite scroll works on Pinterest, which is mindless browsing and inspiration. It doesn't work if you are looking to spend hard-earned money on something now, today.
Okay, okay I get it. But.. what if it were a user function in controls to enable "infinite scroll"?
I think that his observation on the goals of users and the effects of infinite scroll where particularly astute. I can see how on sites like reddit or imgur, where aimless browsing without specific intent could be a good thing, but I also see how a sudden lack of information (say, the number of items returned by a search query) can hamper the users ability to use the site how they intend (to search for products that they like). However, I do wonder if it's possible to mesh the two goals: increased utility for the user in searching for a product, while also integrating an infinite-scroll like feature. For instance, continue to show the list of products, but allow the user to load more products by scrolling to the end of the page. Even within my suggestion, there are better and worse ways to implement infinite-scroll functionality, each with varying levels of effectiveness.