I didn't downvote you, but I was tagged so I'll respond also.

Hive downvotes are a very curious thing. I've written about them a number of times in the 4.5 years I've been part of the platform. The key to understand is this:

The pending rewards are not yours.

So many people get confused on this. They see $40 and think "Hurray! It's like YouTube paying me for my views!"

No. It's not like that at all. It's a fully democratic (some argue plutocratic) system of upvotes and downvotes which determine how the shared pool of reward resources will be distributed. I have much love for you, Derrick, and enjoyed meeting you at Anarchapulco. I don't agree with all your content, but I love how Hive gives you a platform to share it without ever being censored. You might get flagged and some platforms may hide your content requiring someone to click a link before they see it, but it's always there on the blockchain forever. That's the value here. Not the earnings. If you're desperate for funds, seek other forms of employment. If you're just upset about something you thought was yours and feel it was taken from you, then your expectations are not in alignment with how this system actually works. YouTube can give people money because they sell ads and make money off those views. That's not how this works. You get value through inflation which decreases everyone else's value. That's how this works. The tokens given to you are minted as inflation. The parts of the community most impacted by that (those who invest in the token and therefore have a larger amount of their resources inflated away in dollar terms than others) have the most say in how those rewards are distributed and they do that with upvotes and downvotes.

The money isn't yours until after the 7 day voting period and the payout completes.

Getting upset and taking things personally isn't the right approach here, in my opinion.

I didn't downvote you or your posts, but if I saw a post that was overvalued relative to others, I wouldn't hesitate to vote it down because that's like voting up every other post. We have to protect what we value. I value Hive and the Hive token purchasing power. If the story goes "any crap gets inflation rewards on Hive, what a joke" then the value of this whole network goes down for everyone. If you see Hive as just another network to get value out of, that won't be received well by many here.

That said...

I think it's toxic how many content creators have been chased away from Hive. Some of them did have real followings of people who would have come to support them here. Instead, they got flagged, ridiculed, and told to leave. I hope Hive becomes more inclusive and if people are getting huge payouts that don't correspond to the value they bring to the network with their posts then maybe the best approach is to explain how this all works and then downvote without any personal attack. People get upset mostly because of their own expectations that are not aligned with reality. Some get even more upset once they learn how it works and they feel doubly insecure for not knowing and leave angry anyway.

It's not personal. It's valuing the network.