Create an artificial problem, sell the solution to the problem. They've become craftier in their ways of doing that.
I have never used the downvote because the way it is implemented is severely flawed. Well, to be honest I have used it to downvote the Dynamic Duo here who made the downvote, but can't recall ever having used it on a real user.
If it was just a way of filtering ones own feed, that's fine, but it clearly has both intended and unintended negative reach.