Nowadays, the main reason I post on steemit is to express myself. But because I am really honest (aka harsh) sometimes, spiteful people often target me for one reason or the other (drakos is the greatest example here).
But even if I don't actually mind when people downvote me anywhere near as much as I hate spite in general, I still feel bad about it because the people who support me are affected.
I think people who upvote me almost never do it because they like me. I think most upvoters like my work, the posts themselves. So having them being hurt by the spite of others is stressing me.
Because of how fond I've grown into writing #gaming posts, I cannot quit doing it. Instead, I'll just decline payouts for a long while.
Will upvoters' VP still be consumed? Probably, but because a lot of autovoters are configured to skip voting for posts declining payout, it should be fine. I'll personally reach out to those still negatively affected.