I was heavily skeptical about the downvotes provided by HF21, but from what I'm seeing so far, my opinion is coming around.
Leaving aside the less-favourable tines on the fork, in my opinion the downvote pool and its 2.5 'free' downvotes per user per day are turning out to be the best part.
At first, I thought it would cause an increase in retaliatory downvoting, already a problem. I thought it would bring about more negativity (nobody enjoys being downvoted, after all). It seemed like it could cause some problems.
But how I see it now, which is a very positive thing, is that it's like the 2nd Amendment of the US Constitution. If you're not familiar, it's what gives Americans their right to bear arms. To me, downvotes are like shotguns in the hands of the people. Everybody's got a little bit of bite, now.
Whales are less likely to become abusive tyrants when everybody can take a free shot at them (and out of their profits).
Bitbots are already reforming their ways, having seen their customers drop off due to the free downvotes being used against them. Bitbots (and former bitbots) are going around upvoting posts for free, via manual curation, something we've been trying to get to happen around here for a long time!
Abusive shit-posting accounts gaming the system for profit are being targeted by the good citizens of Steem, and some have already quit!
There are other signs of positive changes, too. Leave a comment if you've seen something good coming about because of the free downvotes! I'm interested to hear more.
I have to give some credit to the people who decided on this plan. It hasn't all shaken out yet, and anything could still happen, but overall I think it was a step in the right direction. Thank you!
DRutter
