Downvotes are a necessary part of the process. There was a chain that forked from Steem that tried to go without it. Things go ridiculous.
When they are most applicable is when there is spamming or plagiarism. These are times where it makes sense to take rewards away from people.
Also, tribes are muting people because there are a lot who are tag spamming so I dont blame them. We see it on both Leofinance and CINE. People put up a post and tag a focused tribe like CINE even though the post has nothing to do with Films.
Sadly, downvotes are required because people simply will try to game the system however they can. I do not agree with downvotes based upon disagreement with someone's point of view. People have the right to express what they want, I dont have to agree with it.
Tribes do have some more control as they can mute spammers and those who do not adhere to the guidelines of the community. At the hive level, that is more difficult.
Good topic for which there is no easy answer because there are people who look to bilk the reward pools in so many different ways. Hence, those with stake are continually trying to counterbalance that and downvotes are really their only approach.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta