My thinking at this point is that some things are broken AND that many (if not most) of the top-down fixes have unintended consequences that are worse (which I think you outlined well). My comment doesn’t have a specific answer at this time because I don’t think we’ve found one yet. As much as the free market of downvotes might solve this, the reality is it’s not working. It’s expensive to downvote so many avoid it and prefer upvoting others instead. I’m optimistic a systems level improvement can be made, but even some of the best suggestions (a separate voting power pool for downvotes, for example) also have some unintended possibilities.
Sometimes the best answer we have is admitting we don’t have answers yet and continue to evaluate new options. Sure we can say “let everyone do whatever because FREEDOM!” but that attitude (taken to an extreme) might sap some of our motivation to continue working to find a systems level solution that increases positive benefits for more users instead of just a small handful. People want a meritocracy, but they are quite difficult to create in practice. It’s a combination of building fair systems with simple rules (but no simpler) combined with personal responsibility.
We’re still working on the optimal combination of code changes and community action with tools we already have.