Your upvote is still seen as a sign that you appreciated the post, even if the rewards get nullified. This is one of the most fundamental disagreements I have with the 'downvotes bad' crowd: If you get 126 upvotes and 2 downvotes, your rewards may go to zero, but your work doesn't get silenced. If you're just here for the rewards, then make posts about crypto that are guaranteed to earn you rewards. If you're here to get a message out to people, you're in the best place I've found. If you post it here, it exists here, forever, whether people like it or not. If Lucylin wants to bet his Hive future on talking shit about the platform and it's whales, he can have a big audience and no rewards, which is exactly what he has right now, more or less. His rep isn't getting kicked to zero, and he isn't getting 'shadowbanned'. I think most of posts earn more than they're worth, even though they're getting downvoted to almost nothing, because they almost all basically say the same thing. Lucylin isn't being silenced... he's one of the loudest voices on Hive. I'm pretty sure that despite all the talk about the morality and ethics of it... he wouldn't be calling people stupid for upvoting each post to $100 worth of rewards, even though I haven't seen one worth more than $10.
I like the show, but I think it's half fake. If he's been half as successful at life as he claims, he shouldn't be needing the rewards. His following, and subsequent vote ratio, are stellar. He shows the same outrage for a 0% downvote as a 100% downvote, but he likes throwing rocks at hornet's nests. I like watching people do that.
I agree with you 100% about what is going to happen to this platform once investors really start looking at it. Once people with deep pockets discover they can make money just by buying a large stake and self-voting, they will come here and wreak havoc. Personally, I think this desire that people have on Hive to grow the token prices and the platform are ridiculous. It's the masses that destroy things. I enjoyed MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube before they became monstrous enterprises. Hive has a design better suited to withstand the dumbing down that inevitably comes with ubiquitous use, but finding a balance between good ideas and human intervention is never pretty. The longer Hive can grow slowly, while remaining 'under the radar', the better chances I think it will have when the unwashed masses of humanity decide that Hive is the new flavor of the week.
RE: If I'm collateral damage, what does that tell you?...That it's time to do some carpet bombing ?