The nature of Human being is selfish and greedy.
Not everyone. There are many good, unselfish/selfless people.
If we remove the rewards, what will happen in the steemit community.
There is only one way to find out. :)
The leader of the Steemit should really try that. At least for a few weeks. I would see what would happen. Probably the number of the posts would decrease close to zero. I say close to zero, because I saw some people, who published at least some of their posts with the "decline payout" setting, so a few people would maybe stay for posting even without the rewards.
RE: I don't think Free Downvoting is a good idea, Let's think differently.