Out of all content available worldwide on all platforms, can you think of anything that draws more money and attention than arts and entertainment? I can answer that for you. No.
That example I linked boils down to uneducated investors. And I don't mean stupid. People simply don't know what they have here. That's why they'll spend weeks developing systems that auto curate or delegation pools, effectively paying potential consumers to not consume (paying people to not focus on and buy products) or pooling hundreds of potential eyes into one pair of eyes to go around voting. Then look around, see little engagement, and think there's something wrong with the content. They paid people to NOT look at it.
Did you know, in order for a consumer to support content over the long term with a form of tips we call votes, all they have to do is take money they were going to throw in the garbage from their bank account and place it in their Hive account, technically not spending any money at that point...
I think downvotes/petty disputes over a few bucks, while there's a monster business model sitting right there and hardly anyone notices, while working incredibly hard to push it away without knowing; it's kinda silly.
These conversations, though educational, probably won't amount to much. The abuse is rare, so that's a good sign, people know the risks, they can counter the risks, they annoy people when used for anything other than countering wrongdoings, second layer is in effect so that's cool, and at the same time there are some acts here being rewarded for practically nothing. That in itself creates some of that negative energy you mentioned as well. Shrugs. I dunno. Plus I'm having all kinds of technical difficulties on my end so pardon those edits.