I understand your preferences are to not see any marketing materials (which in my mind is impossible because every piece of communication is a form of marketing), but that doesn't mean ALL people who disagree with you should be silenced completely.
But that's the thing, you don't have to upvote people if you don't like their marketing efforts. Similarly, you can down-vote them for that very thing if you're really off-put by it.
If there are enough people like you, it will not be profitable to share affiliate links on Steem.
However, I would argue that no one account should have the down-vote power to completely silence someone for posting things they don't like.
I agree with you on these things, @punreal. I still have not figured out how to down vote something. I thought that perhaps it was a feature that became activated once I passed a certain threshold of time or influence or something like that. Free speech is important, and I wouldn't want Steemit to loose the ability for many different points of view to exist. But I also hate wasting time wading through posts that are really selling products or services. We are all selling ideas. By the way, I checked out your posts, and I love the puns! I'll be checking in on you often! Cheers!