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It's not like I don't empathize with the sentiment... and downvoting has proven itself a necessary mechanism at times, but mostly it just seems to reinforce the in-group out-group dynamic. How much effort is put into steering these people into getting involved in the community before annihilating their rewards?

I know lots of people who don't know how to survive right now. I know very few people who have never used a tag just for an upvote (do you remember #busy?). If the problem is people cashing out, then I say focus on building up projects like Hivelist and anyone trying to make it easier for small businesses to adopt Hive/HBD.