OP = original poster
In this case, lucylin. He's been around for a long time. That's the downvote under discussion, not a downvote of some hypothetical new user.

There's two distinct topics here: the downvote in this instance and the advantages and disadvantages of downvoting as a functionality of the Hive blockchain.

I don't have the time or energy to get into the latter discussion right now (and the topic has been beat to death, IMO), especially as my own long term focus is on entirely different consensus mechanisms that allow for a plurality of opinions, unlike the current one associated with the Hive token itself.