Sure it takes some time to get the attention of those who may counter them along with not caring about retaliation but it's not difficult.
If someone would constantly downvote you or me, maybe (maybe!) some stakeholders started to counter these flags, but if any newbie is affected, most of the time nobody notices/cares about that - and if then he complains loudly in public, he will get the explanation that that's blockchain/HIVE ("Don't whine, it's just the redistribution of the rewards pool, nothing personal!"). Whale flags and comments are never ever meant personal, you know. :-)
And then, when after the frustration he has already left the platform, what do you think he will tell his friends and colleagues about HIVE?
If the content isn't just a link drop with a footer template I'm sure others seeing that are going to disagree with the downvoter, and like I said this very rarely happens to newcomers providing quality content - I'd know cause I look for newcomers constantly.
It doesn't matter what a small percentage of frustrated users may tell their friends if the majority enjoy the platform and bring in more. We can't please everyone nor is this utopia but it sure as hell beats anything out there right now, if not for a short while then in the long run.
I agree ... until they dare to join a discussion in the inner of HIVE. :-) That happens most of the time to users who are no complete newbies anymore and start to get interested in 'politics' and the mechanisms of blockchain and its reward system.
Let's hope that you are right.
I and HIVE is kind of a love-hate relationship, I have stake here, I would miss the community in case I left, but at the same time things regularly also frustrate me. However, probably I will stay as I always did. ;-)
Sure beats getting downvoted for months by big stakeholders who don't even understand what you're writing just because you downvoted 1 post of them for disagreement of rewards. Haven't seen much of that happening around here, only seen 2 users so far where some of the community/stakeholders had enough of their garbage and decided to zero their rewards due to their content & behavior.
Anyway, I really think this is just a small and unique issue that doesn't happen often and if the users decide to show signs of improvement instead of trying to use 10+ different excuses until something sticks or use their influence to shed dark light on the whole platform, they'll either get countered at some point or the downvoter stops. In the mean time they can enjoy the other benefits aside from the rewards. :)