Neither is your paycheck until the gummint has DV'd it.

Post payouts arent your paycheck. I dont even know where to start to dismiss this nonsense. The decentralized nature of reward distribution? The fact that post payouts are subject to votes and downvotes. That theyre not set in stone or agreed upon in advance in any way whatsoever between anyone that commits an action to affect them. That youre not obligated to provide any agreed upon work. That there is no social, legal or anything that would constitute a contract between parties in any way?
Post payouts have no relevant similarity whatsoever to "paychecks". The only similarity is that $$$ is a factor somewhere in the equation. You might as well compared post payouts to throwing nickels into a wishing well.

The rest of your post is what iffing the worst that can be coded. Code is king. None of that crap is potential unless the code enables it.

And if code is king then you are not entitled to your post payouts. Its not yours until its in your wallet. See. Code is king as you say.

We've seen what unrestricted censorship via unrestrained taxation by anyone for any - or none - reason results in. It eradicates user retention.

Its not taxation. DVs arent even applied across the board or in any structured way or are they targeted or consistent nor are there rules/laws that theyre bound by. literally nothing in common with taxes.... i mean the taxation angle is just silly. Not even if I give you the benefit of colorful exaggeration can you call DVs taxation.

There's no reason to even discuss it. We've discovered the best way to destroy user retention

Downvotes are a non issue. I actually know what the issue is. Your crusade over bullshit is misplaced and a waste of time. Im actually trying to fix the faults while youre ranting over nonsense without any useful input. And you could be providing useful input. Youre not a dumb guy.
The battle is in locating fixable issues and creating pressure on those that are at the root of the problem, that can most easily commit an action to fix the issues.
You spew nonsense akin to conspiracy crap you find on web2 while the problem is in specific individuals with names and faces that just suck. That dont know better and found themselves in a position where their skillset doesnt align fully with the requirements of their position in a decentralized system that has specific needs. And thats common because wer all faulty humans.
There is no faceless cabal conspiring to benefit itself at the expense of the community. If anything is true its that theres an anti-cabal of sorts where most dont even talk to each other as much as they should.

Now, tell me how that rally car replaces >1m users that have been driven from the platform by unrestrained taxation.

This is just a ridiculous statement. Words strung together.
"How does the sparrow replace the helmet shot off by a melon in a hail storm."

None of what you said here has anything to do with each other. You can criticize the rally car. Fine. You can criticize retention. Fine. You can criticize downvotes (still not taxes). But none of that has any relation to each other in any way that you presented it.