Reddit was never going to live up to your expectations. I was an avid Redditor for many years, but left not because of containment of free speech, but because I didn't have the controls to shut some of the nonsense off.
Free speech is a critical component of ensuring democratic government is held to account, and the constitutional protections afforded some citizens of the World from censorship by governments in this regard is superb.
However, it does not mean your favourite website has to grant you or anyone else complete freedom to say or do whatever you want.
It also doesn't follow that free speech can on its own always create environments in which good conversations about complex and nuanced topics can occur. It can in fact mean platforms that would otherwise be powerful political spaces can be co-opted for niche and harmful agendas without consequence.
In simple terms: I don't mind a conspiracy theorist being able to turn up at the town hall and ask questions about why the mayor is keeping things secret. I do mind him insisting on pulling up a chair at my restaurant table and complaining about me trying to silence him when I ask him to go away so I can enjoy my meal.
I am reminded of https://xkcd.com/1357/
There need to be overtly political spaces online. Reddit probably shouldn't be one of them, nor should any other social media platform (including 4chan).
Political spaces online need to be "flat" but with open accountability (known email address albeit possibly forged, IP address albeit possibly VPN'ed, etc. all available in inspectable and open headers), and the ability to self-curate (e.g. like Usenet was with kill files, etc.).
They probably should not be spaces where content created by unknown anon/pseudonym actors is prioritised by algorithms based on engagement or through upvoting, all in order to sell adverts.
In short, social media like Reddit (or Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and even anon spaces like 4chan are utter garbage places for most people, as they will always "fall" to the people who want to co-opt and control them their own purposes.
Free speech online is only going to work if I also have the ability to not listen as a private individual, if I'm able to curate the experience for myself to some extent: content by/with specific people, groups or keywords (of my choosing, not of the platform's, my service provider's or my government's choosing), do not even appear in front of me.
When somebody else is doing all the curating - whether it be algorithms or people "voting up" - it can lead to a quite horrible place to find and engage others on the level you want, or perhaps even need.