I know some people would like downvotes to go away, but they are essential to deal with inevitable abuse. The situation is different to Youtube as there the company can remove content that breaks the rules. We can just remove rewards. In some cases that can seem cruel, but I have seen plenty where 'rancho' gave a big vote and we know that is controlled by haejin who does not care about the good of Hive. He was driven away after selfishly making a fortune from self voting. If you do get a rancho vote then there is a chance it may be cancelled out to give a better rewards distribution. Meanwhile some other people are allowed to keep much bigger rewards, so it looks unfair. Some of those people have done a lot for Hive and whales may think they deserve payment for it. I do not think it is about keeping small accounts down.

I would not expect to see a radical change to how downvotes work. We can each use our HP as we see fit. I have done my share of downvoting to deal with blatant abuse, but will not generally use it for differences of opinion. Others may have different ideas and they have the freedom to act as they see fit.

It does seem some people do not really understand how Hive is intended to work. There are finite rewards to share out and our votes just allow us to have a say in that. If I make more then others make less and I do not take rewards for granted. 

I think most whales have good intentions for Hive as it is in their interest for it to do well, but some of them are keen to build something special too.

Hive is imperfect and may not seem fair, but where else does everyone have a chance to earn something?