I know you're not looking for a real answer, but here's one anyway.

Voat, Communities.win/Scored, even Ovarit all splintered off from Reddit because they got banned or sick of what a shithole Reddit was. Then every one of them re-implemented Reddit's features identically because they were familiar. None gave a second thought to how those features contributed to Reddit's awful culture in the first place. None attempted to improve on the underlying formula, assuming it was only the mods that had made it shit. Which is somewhat understandable because Reddit mods left a hell of an impression.

Downvoting and hiding comments below a threshold are mechanics that invite abuse. And even if not abused, incentivize passive aggressive users. People who downvote and say nothing rarely have opinions worth considering. I'd go as far as to say they have reactions, not opinions.

I know you're not looking for a real answer, but here's one anyway.

Voat, Communities.win/Scored, even Ovarit all splintered off from Reddit because they got banned or sick of what a shithole Reddit was. Then every one of them re-implemented Reddit's features identically because they were familiar. None gave a second thought to how those features contributed to Reddit's awful culture in the first place. None attempted to improve on the underlying formula, assuming it was only the mods that had made it shit. Which is somewhat understandable because Reddit mods left a hell of an impression.

Downvoting and hiding comments below a threshold are mechanics that invite abuse. And even if not abused, incentivize passive aggressive users. People who downvote and say nothing rarely have opinions worth considering.