Thx for your balanced view on the topic, I basically agree with everything you say, and also "downvotes destroying hive" is a bit exaggerating I admit, but it is a serious problem in my opinion after all, it doesn't feel right, not aligning with the open, decentralized, permissionless spirit of crypto that I love so much. One could also argue that giveaways and even self-voting won't destroy hive either if other users get also upvoted and supported along the way.