I don't think it would be beneficial to eliminate downvotes, but there are various ways we can minimize the harm caused by their misuse. In the past I suggested payout recommendations as a way to reduce the need for a flag in certain cases, although linearization of the reward curve may be good enough for that case.
Shield and Counter Votes
One way to minimize the harm of downvotes is to make them easier to counter. I am proposing two related concepts, Shield Votes and Counter Votes.
A "Shield Vote" is a statement to the network saying "I am protecting this account from downvotes". Until cancelled, whenever the target account gets downvoted, as well as applying the negative r-shares of the downvote and consuming the voting power of the voter as normal, it also applies r-shares from the shielding account, and consumes the voting power of the shielding account up to the necessary amount. A "Shield Vote" shouldn't be able to apply more r-shares than the user would be able to otherwise, but it would just make it happen automatically without the need for human intervention, or a bot continually applying defensive votes.
A "Counter Vote" is a statement to the network saying "I am countering downvotes made by this account". It would work pretty much the same as a "Shield Vote", but instead of applying to the account receiving downvotes, it applies to an account making downvotes. It counters any downvotes made by that account, if it can, and consuming the required voting power to do so.
It should be noted that while similar and serving mostly the same purpose, the two concepts could be implemented independent of each other.
I should have been following you years ago. Fixing that now.
Thanks!
Would this be possible via a bot?
Yes, it can and is done ad hoc via bots, such as @seraph.
However I think it's harder to do effectively with bots, and it consumes both more computer and blockchain resources to do it with bots.
On the one hand it could be an opportunity for a service on Steemit to offer protection from downvotes, for a fee. On the negative side though using bots or this kind of service then just opens up Steemit to the digital equivalent of protection rackets.
Would people get paid for their services, for use of their Shield Votes?
They could be, but the incentive is there to do it for free. It's in the interest of every major (and minor) stakeholder for ordinary users to not have a bad experience with bullying on Steemit.