Ohh, yes it does to people. I've had two idiots so far try to use downvotes to intimidate me to submitting to their opinion. It did not work on me because I am an asshole. They tried it because they believe it matters, and everyone else believes it matters too, otherwise they wouldn't be downvoting. Or upvoting, respectively.
You'd be surprised the insane bullshit I've seen upvoted on this platform, come to think of it. Blatant rape apologia and shit. Even Nazis and tankies. I've been arguing people like that into the ground, and everyone seems content to leave that up to the user to downvote away, but that really is something mods should be taking care of, not us. If mods won't ban people like that, why even have them?
Mods aren't paid to moderate here and even though they should, I think almost everyone has a well paying job and a partner or family on the side that gets priority.
Also i think other platforms protected you from seeing what kind of opinions are out there in people. Just because mods clean it up on other platforms, it just means you don't see it - but those opinions are still there.
So I don't know, maybe I'm old fashioned, but I prefer seeing it than living in some illusion that it doesn't exist.
Enforcing rules isn't hiding opinions, it's enforcing rules, and the only way online communities can work is if there are rules regarding what someone can say and what someone can't. That's just the reality of the situation.
Whether mods get paid enough to do it is irrelevant. They chose to be mods so it's their responsibility to actually moderate. If they don't want to, someone else should be given the chance to do it.