Ah yes, the downvote. We know that the steemit voting system was created with a checks and balances opportunity built into it. With the freedom to upvote comes the freedom to downvote.

Personally, I have never flagged a single post or comment (unless I did so unintentionally by "fat-fingering" on my phone. Though I have not downvoted others myself, I believe that they serve a purpose and were built in with good reason.

Obviously spammers, scammers, and plagiarists are some great enough reasons for the downvote to exist. Even when a reputation becomes negative, these people can still post and comment, so other than losing some visibility, they have not "lost it all." At least one user has even returned from a negative rep after a while, which is good that a person can learn their lesson and change their ways.

As for post payout disputes, I think that the downvote is a useful tool as well. I have personally received a number of downvotes for a variety of reasons, but most of them fall into this category from back when the abit/smooth experiment went down.

Getting flagged can hurt, and I have felt that pain. When I received my first whale flag my reaction was about like this.

Yes, I got over it and pressed on. (In fact, I even talked to that particular whale about a few things and they removed the downvote!)

Anyway, I think that steemit and the world are both big enough to leave room for differences of opinions. If people want to fight and use them against one another, they are certainly free to do so. But, we know that people do not always exercise their freedom in the most beneficial or wise ways.