Yes, it is sort of like going to the supermarket with a certain amount of store credits, you load up your shopping cart with all your favorites and go through the checkout line. Then, on your way to your car, the downvote zombies come and empty half your cart. You're like "Hey, I paid for those with valid store credits", to which they reply, the store policy (code, law, whatever), posted for all to see, is that the stuff isn't yours until it actually makes it to your car. Oh, and sorry about the fact that you can't get your credits back -- sucks for you, but that's the 'law of the land'.
Next time you go to the grocery store, you leave the anchovies on the shelf (even though you really love them) and all your other favorites, because the downvote zombies have made it clear that anchovies and all those other goodies you crave are not worth purchasing (and will be confiscated and put back on the shelf), even though you think otherwise.
It is exceedingly draconian.
Several of us within the Proof of Brain tribe are actively working on various solutions that we will try to get implemented as temporal experiments in the near future.
I think it is worse than that. They don't empty your cart. They just decide they don't have to pay the vendor. Then that vendor reduces quality, and/or stops providing products.
ACCOUNT "VERIFICATION" ONLY FAVORS THE "VERIFIERS"
THE TOP 90% OF ACTIVE HIVE STAKE-HOLDERS SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY QUALIFY FOR JURY SELECTION, THIS WOULD ELIMINATE WEENIE-SOCK-PUPPETS.