According to the thing that appears at the top of my HIVE thingo on peakd, I've only got 25% of the HP that I've "earned" during my time here.
That's because I've powered down in the past to buy things like Splinterlands cards, or have moved funds to other HIVE related projects.
But also, I've powered down to get new bits and pieces that have continued to allow me to create stuff to publish on HIVE.
I don't feel guilty about those purchases. I won't feel guilty.
If someone magically says "anyone with a KE less than x never gets any upvotes", will it stop me from creating? No. Will it stop me from ever buying any HIVE ever again? You betcha.
Pay to play isn't cool, particularly for a platform like hive which is supposed to be censorship resistant. When things don't have votes, they don't get seen on HIVE.