Agree with you 100% here. I am a newish Steemit member. I have just recently been hit with an onslaught of downvotes for what seemed like no reason at all. I was actually going to write a post on it. I was able to pinpoint the exact time these downvotes started, and get this "coincidence":
WHEN I REMOVED ALL POSTING AUTHORIZATIONS FROM OTHER USERS/BOTS ON MY ACCOUNT.
Funny thing is, I only did this because I was trying to get a handle on voting power and I spread myself too thin, just trying to learn the process and whatnot. I was going to slowly put every witness and other user/bot I gave access to back on my list.
NOW I AM REMOVING THEM ALL AND KEEPING THEM OFF.
Some of these supposed "witnesses" or "whales", who, one would think are users that should be promoting good behavior are just pushing the little guy down. Not all of them. Some are very helpful. However, and I won't name names here, but one of these "witnesses" downvoted two of my posts for no reason whatsoever. I mean the posts aren't offensive in any way, they just happened to be the TOP MONEY MAKERS this week in my group. His 2 downvotes pushed them down a combined $10 roughly. That may not seem like a lot, and monetarily it isn't to me either, but my account's total value is only around $150. His two downvotes and whatever other bots he sicked on me lowered my potential growth overall by over 15% this week.
I have a lot of Bitcoin. I got in on it early and got lucky. But I also chose not to sell or even swap a lot of it. Point being, I am a mini-whale in the world of Bitcoin, but I wanted to earn that status on Steemit. Not just send 10 BTC to blocktrades and make myself a whale. That to me is cheating. I just got in on Steemit late, so I am a mere minnow....here. That minnow status doesn't translate to the entire cryptoverse. I was very close to sending a couple Bitcoin here and really dishing it back to some people, but I didn't and I won't. As you state in your post, these downvotes for no reason are a great way of making someone like myself lose interest in the Steemit community and seek other platforms that encourage good content and spread love instead of hate.
Great post. Resteemed and UP voted.
RE: NewSteem, Downvoting and How Not to Keep People Around