> bitcoin claims to be this decentralized democratic technical project where anybody can contribute
Where is this claimed? The technical project is just another open source project, not very decentralized. The idea of bitcoin is that you (the user) can decide what software you want to run, if you don't agree with rules imposed by a certain software project you not run it or run an older version. This (as well as how the network works) is decentralized. Ofcourse Reddit and other social media channels are not decentralized, and neither is development of the different node implementations.
I don't think there exists a way to collaborate on any technical open source project in a truly decentralized way. I love to be proven wrong, do you know any project that is? So no BDFL (Linus, Guido), no foundation and actual decentralized contribution?
I think the main takeaway about /r/bitcoin is that bitcoin claims to be this decentralized democratic technical project where anybody can contribute but in reality many of the places where discussion takes place are completely censored and controlled by entities who aren't transparent about their intentions like Blockstream and Theymos. This also applies to /r/btc for Bitcoin Cash shills.