I will leave feedback about the post on the actual post.

Just reading through the comments I think you will better understand why most people do not explain why they downvote people.

There is a split philosophy about downvotes. I am under the impression the philosophy against downvotes primarily comes from the Steem days. People who were here before downvotes were a thing want a world where downvotes don’t exist.

Downvotes were always a thing by the time I got here so I never lived in a world where they don’t exist. I am not in a position where I even understand what having no downvotes looks like.

In the comments there is not a nuanced view about downvotes. It is mostly an echo chamber.

A big stakeholder who downvotes is viewed as corrupt and they are driving people away from the platform…? Seems odd.

If people only want rewards, and they are only here to get paid, yes they will leave. They will leave even without downvotes. They will leave when they can no longer make enough money that it is worth their time.

Blogging is an art form and I think onboarding people with the allure of a financial incentive as a guarantee was a mistake.

I think onboarding people with the allure of the reward pool while ignoring the opinion of big stakeholders is a mistake.

I used to be mostly against downvotes. But when I powered up it changed my perspective. Having a lot of HIVE does change your perspective about HIVE. It is an odd thing that cannot be described in words but people see it through on chain actions.

A lot of big stakeholders don’t downvote. I think that is mostly because they are probably busy.

I do not agree with the perspective that downvotes are inherently bad. It also does not matter what the hive amount is or the dollar amount is on a post.

Getting downvoted is not an attack on free speech.

You can post whatever you want and no one can stop you.

The way downvotes are framed in that post and the comments is how we got to a point where people are constantly harassed about downvotes.

If people make the case downvotes are evil, some person will come along and try to stop downvotes in ways outside of powering up.

We either need to get rid of downvotes or just accept that not all content will get rewards and what gets rewards will always be subjective.