My perception is that downvoting has increased. I often upvote downvoted comments that are perfectly reasonable, though I might disagree with them (or simply no

My perception is that downvoting has increased. I often upvote downvoted comments that are perfectly reasonable, though I might disagree with them (or simply not care much), because downvoting can alienate folk from commenting – I've had that before myself – and I want to read the best content. re ads: I hate them, but I would only contemplate downvoting someone claiming that the internet would die without them – the whole entitlement to push them to my eyeballs thing – unless the comment cited evidence.