Inhibit the growth of social accounts, their reach/audience and by extension, also possibly limit the growth of Hive as a whole.
Nope, downvotes don't do that. If anything, they can actually help an account to grow and get support - well, if they don't incessantly complain about how unfair and "illegal" downvotes are.
Obviously, people will debate whether Hive itself is being limited
The only people I have seen "argue" this are people who believe they are getting censored.
According to dictionary definitions, the behaviour is indeed censorship - I have no interest or time to try to convince anyone here - the truth does not need to be convincing.
"legit"
Having everyone sharing the same rewards pool IS definitely limiting Hive's growth, that is for sure.
I has not been "the same pool" for nigh on four years - where have you been? Alternate interfaces that show/hide different kinds of content have been around since 2016 - Remember Busy.org? That showed nuked content that didn't appear on steemit.com. Your key person must have been out for a very long time.
I'm not sure you understand how the reward pool on layer 1 works. There is only one reward pool that is shared by all the UIs. PeakD, Hive.Blog and the other sites all display posts from the same blockchain database and the rewards are drawn from the same single rewards pool. I have no idea what you are talking about tbh.
I know precisely how it works - but layer-two options have been around since about 2018 if i remember correctly.
You are talking about the suppression of content - busy didn't hide it. You could have done the same for almost 6 years now. You have been around longer than me - you should get organized with that interface already.
Layer 2 options exist, but the majority of stake is in layer 1 - with layer 2 posts also accruing (potentially) layer 1 tokens. There is no reliable layer 2 token for either general content or 'truth' content that is beyond the focus and reach of the current layer 1 large downvoters yet, so most content creators currently end up having a focus on layer 1. There are plenty of people who don't even understand how layer 2 works - please remember that most people don't have the time/focus into things like Hive that perhaps you and others you speak with do.
I personally had built a social network before Steem existed (more than one actually) and I built it with the intention of solving the problem of my own online censorship (which was real and unusually high even back then.. I have consistently been a top performing profile on any network that supports free speech and consistently not done well on silicon valley, controlled networks). Anyway, my intention has been to relaunch my own site as a Steem (now Hive) community, but SMTs took forever and Hive Engine has a high cost to entry that I personally cannot afford due to personal issues in my life atm. However, I am working on a layer 2 token as part of a team, which would have already been live except for factors outside of my control. Currently, I am looking to help the SPK network to lower the cost to entry and at that point all of these reward pool problems may be resolved, as communities will be empowered to action a 'Justin Sun Defence' strategy and just fork their community and coin if someone comes in with nefarious intentions.
I have said all of this multiple times in the past few days, both in the 3speak community session and in my posts and comments.