Free Downvotes—Good, Bad or Meh?

I've been thinking about the upcoming hardfork, aided along by some other posts that are now appearing regarding the downvote pool that will allow for some free downvotes per day per account.

Some are heralding it as a good thing. STEEM, they argue, needs people to downvote, because downvoting is the only way to keep those who post garbage from doing it.

Well, obviously, that's debatable, since there's still plenty whose posts are considered at best subpar pretty much doing what they want because they have the SP to weather the flag wars, what few have come their way.

But that's because not enough people with high SP has taken up arms. They'd rather use their SP in other ways, like delegation.

Prior to now, there hasn't been incentive to downvote because doing so takes away from one's ability to upvote. Each downvote means there could be all kinds of posts that don't receive an upvote.

With a separate downvote pool, people won't be penalized for going after those garbage posts. The trending page will become more organic. Fewer people will use bidbots because those kinds of posts will be primary targets. Life will be good on STEEM because of it.

Then, you have the opposing side, who may also be concerned about garbage posters, but they are equally if not more concerned about themselves and others getting hit in the crossfire of what must surely be an influx of flag wars. Without a disincentive to downvoting, more people will feel free to fling downvotes for whatever they like, going way beyond just disagreements on value of content.

We've already seen flag wars that have more to do with personality clashes, some of them wrapped in ideology, others just for pure spite. Those who warn against a downvote pool just see it as a potential free for all. No one will be safe.

While I can't see that downvoting will magically be used only for the garbage posters, the spammers, scammers and phishers, and while I do see an uptick in flag wars, I wonder just how much a few free downvotes a day will actually do. Personally, I think this is just to get us used to the idea of some free ones, so the next step can be providing more of them until we're actually able to earn an anti-curation reward for them.

In my opinion, those who don't feel the need to downvote now aren't going to feel it unless there is some ROI attached. I'm talking about the heavy hitters, the ones who are more about what they can get out of it than they are idealogical or what might be best for STEEM.

I've been trying to figure out an analogy to what downvoting is. I guess on Reddit, upvotes and downvotes push stories one way or the other, so that more people can read them, or not, depending on which way they're going. I guess there is that effect on STEEM, too, only there are rewards attached to it, too, and people tend to get a little upset when someone comes along and takes some rewards away.

Most of us are used to either purchasing an item, or not. We don't typically go to a store and start marking down their prices, or go to an art gallery and do something similarly. If we tried going lower on a higher bid at an auction, the auctioneer wouldn't listen to us.

The closest I've come to a working analogy is what happens with the markets. People vote up the price of something by buying it. Others vote the price down by selling. However, in each instance, both own something.

I guess in this case, we could say we own our stake. Thus, we're using our owned stake to vote up or down posts. However, the rewards being allocated to a post are meant for someone else, with a portion of it coming back to us in the form of curation. Downvoting tends to affect the creator's final cut, but it also affects the curation.

So, I don't know. By the end of the month, HF21 will no doubt be implemented and we will start to see the results of all of it within the weeks and months after its arrival. I don't intend to use the downvote any differently than I already do, which is not much. I think it lends to more ill will than good, simply because we are human and we don't like to see anything being taken away from us, even if it's not ours yet, and even though that happens all the time through falling STEEM prices and the constant roiling of the reward allocation process.

I will approach this like I try to approach most things in life. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and find a way to accept what will undoubtedly be something in between.

Undoubtedly, you've been weighing and sifting through the different opinions regarding HF21, the Economic Improvement Proposal, and particularly the downvoting pool. Have you found any clarity in any of it? Have you changed your mind one way or the other because of the information or opinions you've read?

_{Image source—Pixabay}