It is frustrating for those that pioneered reddit to grow to what they are now that the site has completely changed, but looking from business perspective, earl

It is frustrating for those that pioneered reddit to grow to what they are now that the site has completely changed, but looking from business perspective, early adopters are not the crowd that brings profit. They generate content, but they mostly generate content for others like them (mostly technology/programming and other geek stuff related). Those that generate profit, i.e. in reddit's case buy reddit gold AND don't use adblock, are the people that care about other things, and freedom of speech is the least of their concerns. So from business analytic's perspective, he sees the numbers and he sees the target audience PLUS advertiser contract clauses (like no racism/sexism/certain porn things, non-liberal leaning things in general), and you get essentially private censorship. It's not a pretty sight, especially looking at deleted and locked threads daily, but it has a certain logic behind it. That logic is not in out favor, but we are not all people.