Downvoting makes total sense — allow users to filter out bad content instead of having to do it yourself.
But does it actually work that way?
You’re now giving power to a group of people you can’t trust. From now on, whenever someone doesn’t like a piece of content, he will downvote it.
Depending on the time of the day you post, your content might get downvoted way before another group of people who might actually like to see it comes by.
The result is that you can only post content that pleases the majority. You can no longer post for niches that you care about because it will be downvoted way before they find it.
That’s why it’s impossible to have real discussions on sites like Hacker News or Reddit because your comment will be hidden once it gets enough downvotes. I’ve had better conversations on LinkedIn and Facebook than on those sites.
Downvoting is too easy. When someone doesn’t agree with a post, he will simply downvote it instead of taking the time to explain why he doesn’t agree. The result is that nothing ever gets better because post authors don’t get quality feedback so that they can improve.
Did you notice how on sites that Reddit, all the content looks the same? If you go on a subreddit that talks about Thinkpads for example, you can hardly see any content that talks about the downsides of owning a Thinkpad. Now you start to believe that Thinkpads are the best laptops in the world. That’s because anyone who talks bad about Thinkpads gets downvoted before anyone can see it.
If downvoting didn’t exist, you’d see the truth instead of narratives that others want you to follow.
It’s effectively a censorship tool. That’s why users of sites where downvoting is common create such things as bubbles — little utopias far removed from the real world where the grass is always green and problems don’t exist. These users grow to become angry at anything that doesn’t cater to their preferences and turn into inquisitors.
You can easily find these people simply by telling a joke online.
So I decided that downvoting should not exist. It’s for cowards who want to ruin the world.
© Michael Karamuth 2022