Free downvotes were initially added to help combat plagiarism/abuse without the fear of losing potential curation rewards. So people either had to be quite altruistic to forego their own "income" to combat abuse. If I am not misremembering, the number of free downvotes each account has is approximately 2 (per 24 hrs). So only 200% worth of downvotes can be given out before it starts affecting VP, therefore, curation rewards.

a broader range of implications that result from downvoting and the possible effects on Hive's longevity, growth potential and PR moving forward. Hive is already known as a place where censors operate among influencers in the free speech movement, so it is essential to take some action to address this asap if Hive's primary selling point is to be taken seriously.

I do understand your point and it is true. Technically, when you see a big red "you've received a downvote" notification from an app you're using, that might end up in a negative psychological effect, which might cause the person to lose enthusiasm to continue doing whatever they're doing on the platform. Is it because free downvotes exist? I don't think so. Even before free downvotes, even though it could be less than now, people did use the downvote feature.

But again, it revolves back to the "frontend" aspect of things. Just because it is technically possible to downvote someone does not mean a front end has to display it (a la trending). Having a front end that simply does not count downvotes is relatively easy. On top of that, it's also important to point out that eventually, when Hive becomes more "modular" it is possible that L1 will not be the social/posting aspect any longer. To be honest, even today, someone can create their own sidechain token and award it however they'd like, ignoring downvotes altogether. (That is if the worry about rewards outweighs the viewership.)

To return back to the removal and/or adjustment to free downvotes; It won't stop people from downvoting. But it might affect the fight against obvious spammers, plagiarists as well as reward pool abusers. So it is a case of "lose-lose" in my opinion.

To sum up my comment, I do think that Hive is going to evolve even further in the very near future and have proper L2 operations. Having L2 is going to give us so many options in terms of various apps and how they operate freely, utilizing Hive's features, depending on what they'd like to use. From reward pool to voting power, to basic stuff like upvoting and downvoting. Currently, any change in the system causes an issue. It's a case of you win some, you lose some.

Regarding governance and potential "takeover" attacks; Hive is definitely stronger than Steem. On top of having features like delayed voting, we do not have "Hive Inc." and that is a huge plus for us. Anyone at any given time can power up Hive to become a major player. Hive was just $0.09 just a year ago. As I said before, I would really like to see more people stepping up to be witnesses, taking an active part in governance and consensus, deciding the future of the chain while contributing to the decentralisation of it. That does not necessarily mean they have to power up a million Hive.

My summary needs a summary; Unfortunately, in my opinion, there is no "best of both worlds" at L1 with what we have right now when it comes to downvotes, however, in the future as Hive develops further, it will unlock even more freedom for developers and users alike to customize the platform to their liking.