Tricky one these days. I was always convinced that downvotes should not be seen as negative / criticism of one's content. The reality shows people feel bad - they feel attacked personally, some more than others. To save or protect the reward pool and the long termed goals of the blockchain flags are needed to get rid of scammers, spammers, shit posters, circle jerkers of the big systems.
If people use downvotes with responsibility all fine, i do not like general automated downvotes e.g. for people using bid bots (this is appreciated as of facts we all know, on the other hand it could eb seen as pure marketing instrument as well). I am not using bid bots since ages but even if - why do usually the small users get punished?
At least I would love these guys that claim to run totally "manual curation" nowadays to also qualify and judge their downvotes in such cases. We have a lot good creators that are simply kicked aways at the moment - even I repeat myself it is unfortunately not the scammers we lose but good community folks.
Hence - whales and people with a lot delegated SP, use it careful. The #newsteem can be a great thing but it takes 1-2 years still to wipe out the traditional jerk shit. I woukd wish some of huge stakeholders (especially with a huge delegation) would act more in favour of the chain, sometimes they simply sit on their stake while they could do much more for the community.