At first, when the hardfork was announced, a lot of small accounts were worried that they might lose the small rewards that they were getting because of the new reward curve, and they were pretty upset about it. There was also fear that those who flag just to be jerks or because they disagree with your opinion would get worse, but that didn't really happen. And, like you said, now it's mostly the abusers who can no longer abuse with impunity that are crying the loudest about downvotes.

I think all the former bid bots and vote selling projects that turned into curation projects after the hardfork have been very good for the platform. I've seen a lot of creators that used to get a few cents for their good content are now getting a few dollars for the same type of content. Even my own so-so content got much better rewards after the hardfork because it got curated by former bid bots.

We need to go after the abusers with our downvotes, and I see a lot of curation projects doing that as well. In the end it's good for those who produce good content. And even those like me who just produce so-so content. Hehe!

And like you said, everyone should be held to the same standards regardless of if they are this that or the other demographic. Vote based on the content rather than based on traits the author was born with and has no control over.