The most important aspect of this change is that the 5 minute reverse auction is going away, so there is no punishment for voting early.
When will the $0.02 payout threshold will go away?
If you get an upvote worth $0.01, and only that, then that will not be paid out because of the above mentioned payout threshold. This is also a punishment. Maybe even worse than the "voting early" one.
RE: Hive Hardfork 25 is on the Way: Hive to reach Equilibrium on June 30th, 2021