Judging by the reaction to the deletion of GGs stories, a significant minority or even a majority want the latter.
So the real question is does the public get what the public wants?
Well, not really. Not when creating a new subreddit is free and easy to do. If a significant minority of a subreddit audience dislikes a decision they can easily set up their own community.
Your line of reasoning is similar to the jingoistic "USA! Love it or leave it!" style reasoning. Rather than abandonment, another remedy is to actually fix the problem, namely Reddit's moderation system.
And of course abolish the NSA.
It really isn't. "USA, love it or leave it" it useless at best because people very rarely have the ability to just up and leave their home country, let alone deal with the employment and family repercussions of doing so. In short: it isn't a reasonable expectation.
To refer back to the post I replied to:
Is unbiased journalism what /r/news and /r/worldnews readers actually want?
I don't know. But the point is this: /r/news has rules. I don't see how the mods are being dishonest - the rules are stated quite clearly. If a significant minority disagree with those rules, starting a new subreddit is incredibly simple and has no repercussions beyond people adding another subreddit to their subscribed list.
I don't think "Is our precious little Public getting everything he wants?" is the right question. What the public wants is shouty-but-shallow opinion pieces and cat pictures, and in those interests they are already well-served. The point of moderation is to raise the level of discourse above the lowest common denominator.