I agree with @jrcornel that downvotes are damaging to the value of Steem. First, I assert that there is no such thing as "things that shouldn't have been getting rewards in the first place" on Steem. Allow me to qualify that statement. Every person that has powered up Steem is an asset to the blockchain, because they tighten the supply and demand ratio. The upvotes they have are due to the SP they have powered up, so it really don't matter what they do with them. Some upvotes might be more productive than others, but all upvotes are backed by investment in the network.

The amount of rewards given out are fixed and divided according to upvotes. For this reason, when you upvote something, you are essentially downvoting everything else. So, why even have a downvote option? Simple, downvoting everybody but the ones you like do not give you the precision of choosing who you hope to prevent from enjoying the functionality of Steem. The idea stems from authoritarianism similar to Twitter and Patreon's policies. This conflicts with the spirit of Steem, but also conflicts with its value to investors.

Contrary to popular opinion, bots are not damaging to Steem at all. They are actually very helpful. Imagine if all of them suddenly dumped all of their STEEM on the market right now, what would that do to the price? We all know. They are here because they see a value in "keyboard mining" on the blockchain.

On top of that, bots are actually a key player in the Steem economy. They provide a service people value, and that's why they are "leeching" from Steem. They are not leechers, they are investors and they only increase the demand for Steem by buying up much of the supply and offering their upvotes as a service.

Downvotes are the only truly scary thing about looking at Steem as an investment. They are the dangerous random variable that could ruin the revenue model. This is similar to miners being afraid of algo changes. You can't reasonably calculate your ROI.

Okay, let me further explain what I said above. Why are bots not the problem? Because they are investors and an area of faucets and sinks for STEEM. Bots get all the blame for the problems on Steem but they are not what is wrong. The issue is that Steem has no major go-getters behind it. It doesn't have Hoskinson, Dan or any of the big names fighting for it.

The issue has never been bots, its a lack of competent heroes. If the Bitcoin Jesus was given 10,000,000 STEEM I have no doubt this place would have a hugely popular youtube channel and quickly turn into "money for the world..." as he likes to say.

Aggroed and Yaba are pretty cool peeps, but all the top blockchains have an iconic public figure, but not Steem. Steem has a pretty boy that leads THE social media blockchain and yet has no time for doing social media. Does anyone honestly think Ned is busier than Vitalik, Ver or Hoskinson? And yet all those guys make sure the buyers of their coins see their face regularly.

Its easy to blame bots, but its never been their fault everything has gone so poorly. Its the fact that Steem has never had competent champions bringing in the crowds. The idea that getting rid of the bots will magically fix everything is just wishful thinking. It doesn't address the problem that nobody knows about Steem. And they don't know about them because there is no affiliation program or any real marketing strategy at all.

From what I can see, Steemit Inc. is not even trying to achieve mass adoption. They have people with very fancy titles like Communications Director, but what the heck do they do all day? Why don't they keep up with the content producer standard that all the youtubers living off donations can accomplish? I'm sure they must be having a lot of thoughtful meetings, but at some point a person is going to compare their twitter/youtube stats and realize somebody is sitting on their hands. Bitcoin Cash has regular videos on Youtube, they are not THE social media blockchain, and that's just embarrassing for Steem.