If anyone higher-up is starting to see why this policy of noninterference is overall harmful, they really, really need to put together their case (I'm sure there are plenty of redditors that will help do this for them) into a short speech or talking point, and speak truth to power ('power' in this case being whoever up top is maintaining the non-interference party line).

Freedom of speech is all well and good, but it still comes with rules - even at the highest levels, with the First Amendment and such. And it's time to stop pretending that Reddit's built in such a way that users can regulate it themselves, because the admins haven't built it well enough for it to actually work:

1. Subreddits with "better names" have a heavy advantage in how they are found by users.
   1. There is no regulation of who gets what name, nor ability to vote out someone who has a name after the fact.
   2. Result: Thus, a sub for a popular webcomic run by a nazi apologist - which normally users would not use as much as one dedicated to the same comic that... wasn't - can still thrive, merely because the sub has that webcomic's username. (Don't worry, we've reclaimed /r/xkcd now - but if the neonazi hadn't forgotten to log in it'd still be under his control)
2. it's damn near impossible to get people to shift to using new subreddits, because
   1. the network effect keeps most of them on the bigger subreddit, and
   2. plugging the new sub on the old one can just be taken down by the old sub's mods, and
   3. Even if the plugs aren't taken down, they're only seen by whoever was on the sub at the time, and
   4. Even those users who were there often don't stick with the new sub (because of point #1 in this sublist)
   5. Result: As we saw, /r/xkcdcomic just couldn't get everyone to pull away from /r/xkcd, and the former owners were (very successfully!) able to censor any talk of the new sub.

Thus, users stay on big-name subs even if their top mods are scum, and we're stuck with whoever frankly at the behest of whoever happened to register those names first.

Reddit, and specifically whichever admins still think non-intervention works, get your shit together. Either start vetting the people you give top-level control of major/well-seen subreddits to, or give users better tools to migrate userbases away from subs that are held by users who promote negative agendas.

You think we're an empowered community capable of self-regulating mods, but the fact of the matter is that the platform as it exists now is broken in that regard. The barrier to entry for migrating subs is too high, the ability to vote out mods is nonexistent. The strongest community efforts to make migrations happen - like with xkcdcomic - still fall flat when they go up against the sheer flaws in the platform.