I initially mentioned that if the issue is viewership (i.e. downvoting causes people to be muted and/or make it harder to reach trending/hot) a potential solution is building a frontend that ignores all downvotes.

I have mentioned this for the last 4 years I have been around this particular conversation of downvotes and censorship, including visibility - none have done it.

Upvotes aren't very good at gaining visibility anyway - unless upvoted into Trending (that most don't read). What is good for visibility is having accounts that have built trust and followership themselves, share the posts with others, on and off the platform. Also, creating the type of content that people want to engage with often and keep coming back to day after day to see what else is interesting.

If the problem, however, is rewards... Hive rewards are never promised.

Precisely. It is in negotiation for 7 days and it is not "owned" until the blockchain automatically pays it out into a wallet address, at which point it is "owned" and a person can do as they like with it.