Ehm. So how come old witnesses and many of those who moved to HIVE were saying over and over that downvoting is necessary to fight abuse and reward pool rape?

Because they are wrong? Because they read the whitepaper and believed all the marketing nonsense about proof-of-brain and "wisdom of the crowd".

I'm not even against downvoting. What I am against is people freaking out and making rash decisions because they want to punish users who are actively exiting the economy anyway. Talk to me again in 2 months.