I have had plenty of retaliation for downvoting people. I accept it as part of the deal. I only downvote those who I consider to be abusing the Steem platform for profit or to spam. In some cases their content may be good, but taking an unearned chunk of rewards by buying votes is not on. In any case I only remove a few cents, but I have others who trail me to take a few more.

I see it as a duty of big accounts to take some action against abusers. It is in their own interest if they want to see the Steem price go up. Seeing cheats prosper just puts people off the platform. Most of them have done very well so far. They can get a lot of votes for anything they post because they have more followers, but also due to people trying to maximise their curation rewards. I don't play that game as I want my votes to go to those who need them more. There is a lot of underrewarded good content on Steem.

We should work on getting a better distribution of rewards if we want to grow. I hope 2020 will bring good things.

Steem on!