I have come to believe the downvote pool is a critical aspect of the EIP and HF21, because it is necessary to allow the whales to eliminate potential liability that will remain a threat to their profits after they move on to the next profit center. Of the whales whose stake resulted from the ninjamine, @berniesanders has acted as the enforcer, and while he has been able to force people off the platform, the downvote pool will add to his ability to remove accounts. In the execution of these activities Bernie has committed crimes including death threats, extortion, and sexual harassment. Since those acts were committed on the blockchain, he is faced with potential liability, and as a member of the original ninjaminers and profiteers on Steem, I am confident he will not alone accept that liability.
In considering the history of corporate profiteering I recalled the example of Bain Capital, still embroiled in expensive litigation due to their fraudulent extraction of the value of eToys, for example. Since flags have proved nominal to drive users off the platform, the downvote pool might be a mechanism able to destroy the Steem community, and thus enable witnesses to cease operations insufficiently productive of financial rewards to justify. Once the servers are wiped, the evidence of those crimes no longer exists, and only this enables that potential litigation liability to be eliminated.
I am not going to be benefited by the downvote pool, and only a fool would expect that. It will certainly be interesting, though. We do live in interesting times.
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I don't think the hundreds of witnesses out there are all ever going to wipe their servers.
Why would they keep the information once there was no financial incentive to do so?
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It isn't all about financial incentive. Some don't have financial incentive now and still keep it going. Some still use IRC too. And anyway, when it comes to information, there is always some value possible and even if they are not running a witness node, the chain can be stored on a normal hardrive. They are pretty cheap.
Since my speculative theory is regarding ongoing financial collusion, I should have phrased my last comment differently. If the intent of HF21 is actually to kill Steem, then the lack of financial incentive to maintain the blockchain would provide witnesses with plausible reasons for wiping their drives and deleting the blockchain along with evidence that could present tortuous liability for malicious actors.
It's a cliche that criminals want to leave no witnesses able to provide evidence of their crimes. There are certainly plenty of examples of corporate profiteers that have lost considerable ROI to such liabilities.
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