Maybe it's as simple as this: You can spread negativity or positivity. I get your argument that you can't realistically upvote every other post available for payout so you'd rather downvote, but I still see it as spreading negativity. I'd prefer we each promote what we like and move on when others promote things in ways we disagree with. As was told to Thumper: "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."
A downvote / flag is psychologically discouraging for authors, especially when they've invested a lot of time and effort into their content. You say you want to grow the platform, but discouraging authors is not the way to do that. Potential new authors will see the negativity and bickering and flagging and think, "Why would I subject myself to that psychologically negative environment? I'm already fragile enough as it is." (I know some authors).
Humans are not emotionless machines. We interpret intentions in funky ways (loss aversion, etc). As a social platform, we should do our best to recognize that and act accordingly. I think the flag is appropriate as it recognizes that reality while still providing a mechanism to prevent community-accepted abuse. A downvote? Well, that's different to me. As it stands, it seems the community sees your downvote in this case as a negative action.
It is good to approach things as simply as possible, but no more simply than that.[ref]
@smooth: thanks for clarifying. If and when those changes are made, I'll better appreciate your actions. It's possible you are taking one on the chin here for pushing a needed change the community isn't yet ready for. If that's the case, I hope your actions can be appreciated in time as a catalyst for improvements which would lead to them not being perceived as negatively as they are currently perceived.
I don't think I get your meaning.
People continually see a flag (because that's what it is on the interface they use on steemit) in order to communicate a desire for lower payouts as a negative attack on them and/or their content. To not recognize this would be to not recognize the social norms of the community. It doesn't matter what the founders/whales say or do, what matters is how people who are flagged interpret that action. This goes back to my Thumper comment (I was making a Bambi reference there) along the lines of, "If it's not nice, don't do it." If you think flagging long form content with high rewards will somehow save Steemit or make it more popular, I guess I'm not seeing it. Seems to me to bring more negativity which will keep people away.
My comment was a reference to the fact that there are multiple considerations and reducing it to a single one (positivity vs. negativity) is taking things too far. As you are probably aware I have been a champion of positivity as an effective approach to community-building for a long time, and I remain so, but this does not mean that it overrides everything else. There is an evolution of awareness of the need for downvoting as well as upvoting, as can be seen not only in the statements and actions of the founders and developers but also in the recent (and long considered and debated) change to add "disagreement on rewards" to the flagging UI.