I appreciate the comments and acknowledge the relevance of this point, which further enriches the debate.
I concur that although Blurt was, in a sense, a fork of Steem, its philosophy was also shaped in response to the concerns of the post-Hive world, particularly governance and downvotes. Removal of downvotes aimed to counter the concerns of opinion suppression and imbalance of power.
I was not making a value judgement in this post regarding which model is “right” or “wrong” and was interested in the rationale for the establishment of the different chains, and the impact of their design choices on adoption and sustainability. In Blurt’s case, as you pointed out, the no-downvote feature became a hallmark of the platform while paradoxically creating its own issues of spam and abuse.
Thank you for this insight, as these governance dilemmas are often the domain of seasoned community members and rarely of technical history. Such comments aid newer members (who are still trying to figure these things out) in recognizing the underlying social issues which these forks attempted to resolve.