I hope this is temporary until we get a tag feature because downvotes is a self-protection mechanism if something that shouldn't be there posted on a certain sub. I was already seeing such posts and now we don't have downvotes to repulse them. This will just lead to increase in unrelated posts or even self ads.
sauce?
It's definitely not the culture but a loud (and jerk) minority. You may even meet someone obsessed with downvoting you, when you see someone like that just report them. It's sad to see you going, but we need to stick together if we want this platform to get bigger.