Post from 13 years ago, basically agreeing that everyone ignored the “rule” and used upvote/downvote as glorified agree/disagree buttons:

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/s/HAxw7Z9PE4

Excellent references!

Btw, this article seems to perfectly describe the effects you are mentioning, e.g.:

That same attitude contributed to the development of an appallingly toxic and hostile culture online: As more people – many with silently held prejudices – flocked to a place where allegedly nothing mattered, they let themselves loose, flinging typo-ridden bigotry at any target that they could find. While the sentiments were occasionally decried and the writing errors were sometimes corrected, the retort of “It’s the Internet! Nobody cares!” was wielded with nearly constant frequency. There were certainly oases of reasonable and well-composed discourse… but as their populations grew, so did the volume of posts and comments that were offered from positions of apathy and ignorance.

… Before long, accuracy, quality, and correctness became optional requirements, and online audiences learned to expect mostly low-effort content instead of refined assemblages. …We ignore thoughtfully composed “walls of text,” but we electronically applaud memetic image macros and single-sentence references that aren’t inherently entertaining or insightful (yet are somehow still poorly written). When we amplify these things – using our likes, upvotes, retweets, and shares – we encourage the creation of more low-effort content, and in so doing, we send the message that higher-quality offerings are unwelcome and unwanted. That above-mentioned message isn’t necessarily what we intend, but it’s nonetheless what we say: Positive responses of any variety communicate more than just “I like this;” they also serve to mean “other people should see this” and “more of this, please.” The other implication, then, is that things which receive less attention – if only because they would have taken more effort to consume – aren’t as deserving of it. We may even state as much directly, downvoting or dismissing submissions that irritate us by either asking for too much of our time or challenging our expectations. In the end, the unified statement which arises from all of our indirectly expressed preferences is that only low-effort content will be accepted.

It is a fantastic article and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Edit: also it helps explain why this isn’t a problem seen merely with Reddit, but also Twitter/X, Facebook, Threads, and yes Lemmy (+Mbin/Piefed/Sublinks) too - it’s apparently rooted in human nature, thus would require enormous pushback to try to counter, while in contrast monetary profits tend to go along with whatever most easily aligns with our most basal natures. Sex sells, greed moar so, but laziness most of all.

I was there. It was real. You’re not crazy, a lot of us went by a kinda honor code for downvotes. You had to say something very irrelevant for me to downvote.

It was the best of times for internet forums.

Better discussions and the gags were limited and not belched out repeat jokes. Yes there were inside jokes but it wasn’t like broken arms jackdaw molly rancher every damn thread. It got too popular and with that you drew the youtube comment types all trying to get the “funniest meta joke” per thread which translates to “most likes” for people not interested in genuine discussion. Couple that with echo chambers and astroturfing and well, now we’re here.