For the longest time, Reddit allowed some of the most toxic, explicitly hateful, communities out there. It continued to grow very quickly under those circumstances. Furthermore, the more moderate communities continued to exist. It wasn’t until later, when they were trying to monetize, that Reddit started cracking down on the allowed content.

As much as I disagreed with those communities, I think Reddit was a better place when the admin had a looser hand on which communities could it could not exist