To my recollection Aaron Swartz was anti-establishment; the reddit he was part of was grass-roots, laissez-faire, no holds barred, ... whilst reddit today is part of the media establishment, much more top-down, heavily modded and censored.
Reddit in the post digg-exodus days seemed like a veneer of 'news' covering one of _the_ seedy underbellies of the web. Not only, but to a large extent a hive of scum and villainy; not a chan-site but similarly lacking in societal respectability.
He was only there for a few months, so I don't think the reddit community changed much and drove him off that way. It was like it was when it started for several years.
kn0thing and spez seem like they have a lot in common with Elon politically. Aaronsw not so much.
Sorry I can't seem to explain how I perceive their political differences at the moment and instead am just giving an example.
