Right now, if people want to decline payout and bot their post, I am fine with it. If 100 people all did it and took over trending I would start downvoting what I didn’t want to see and upvoting content I did want to see.

I find this confusing. If they are all declining payout so that they cannot be up or downvoted, how would you, to quote again, "I would start downvoting what I didn’t want to see and upvoting content I did want to see".

Are you saying that despite declining payment, the poster can still be up or down voted?