Who, I'm sure, will be looking out for the little guy all the way.
I'm about as cynical about this as you are generally speaking, however, in the short term there is a synergy. Most of the big guys do recognize that the little guys (improving both growth and retention) are the path to growth and to the price of Steem ceasing its long spiral toward zero.
This really isn't about the big guys coming up with a way to rape more value from within the system, as most are doing a perfectly fine job of that already. If that were the goal, the best thing to do, and certainly the easiest, would probably be nothing.
I see the one selling point of Steem, that cannot easily be corrupted by money, is the free speech aspect. By making downvotes a bonanza for the wealthy - we risk removing that strength. People who say that downvoting isn't censorship are right on a certain level, but wrong on another. Messages get promoted online primarily via social media and advertising on social media - so, often, those with the most money get heard the most. Downvoting removes reach from messages/people and will be weighted more in favour of those with the most money if they get extra downvote power in relation to stake. If downvotes just removed rewards then it would be less of an issue, but they currently also limit reach. Maybe UIs would be developed to incorporate the ability to view lists of posts without the effect of downvotes to compensate for this - but it just feels to be the wrong approach here. I feel like this 'feature' is just wallpapering over the cracks.
If the main selling point of downvoting is a way to counteract bots, I think there are better ways to do that.
The likely result for free speech would be people using some concentrator other than steemit.com to view the blockchain data so they don't have content hidden just because some disliked what is being stated. The power of steem is the blockchain and that it can't be censored. The steemit.com concentrator though in honoring down votes very much can censor. The people just have to be aware of other ways of viewing the blockchain. That is very unuser friendly and something most people would not do, or not know how to do, so for all intents and purposes it might as well be considered censorship.