> When I clicked on a reddit result on Google to find some information, only to find it has been closed down in protest after trying to find something on Google, I was frustrated

There are two solutions to this: google's cached pages and archive.org.

> Reddit is fully within their rights to seize the subreddits from their unpaid moderators and I would expect them to if they're gearing up for an IPO.

Reddit's sob story is that they are still unprofitable. They can't afford to hire moderators for the seized subreddits.