!BBH
I saw a recent post denouncing downvotes as abuse. I challenged some of the claims made by the author, but it had little effect, and I was eventually downvoted and impolitely told to go away.
My downvotes are generally for comment spam and bot activity. I try to upvotes what I see as quality content or good engagement. I have my habits from my favorites feed, and I know I should do more to find newer authors to support, but I try to focus the vast majority of my voting into support regardless.
It is well known from a lot of scientific research that people are generally triggered far more greatly by losing something than they are excited by gaining something. This is part of why downvots are so contentious and potentially problematic. From a PR perspective their use has been a nightmare.
Ultimately, the votes are sometimes used as a form of Operant conditioning - which then taps in to all of the similar patterns people have experienced in their lives - some of which can be horiffic and evil. So the whole topic requires far more wisdom and understanding than is typically applied by people who view it merely as a weapon to be used in whatever way they like.
The good thing is that there is more content worthy of upvotes on Hive daily, than most of us can meaningfully upvote. I periodically have to narrow my focus, and restrain letting my voting power dip below 65%.
The answer for all us of us is to stake more Hive so we can meaningfully reward more content.