The paper this article is based on is from 2009. I'd argue that's against rule 5.

I think it’s important to make note of the fact that they were banned on Reddit for good reason

Reddit is an echo chamber. Being banned there is not indicative of anything.

Are most ignoring the numerous examples of Reddit subs users inferred “likely won’t be a big deal” becoming obviously problematic down the line, with the inevitable ban/quarantine occuring with most upset it wasn’t dealt with from the start?

You've just explained how Reddit became an echo chamber which is the same road lemmy.world is taking.

we don’t know that denuvo ACTUALLY impacts sale numbers by convincing those mean old pirates to buy their game

But we do know it improves sales, that's why every game publisher that can afford it is using it. They have years of data to prove it. What do you have?

You're right, fixed.

This same logic could be used to argue that the government forced people to get the covid vaccine.

Flagg Center Church? As in Randall Flagg?

Have you ever used cheats on single player games when that was still a thing developers put in games? I did, it was fun. That's why.

Reddit mods should be renamed spez's bitches.

I remember a similar case regarding Windows shipping with IE. Whatever happened with that?

Site policies can prevent that kind of behavior in that particular site. It's better than nothing.

I agree. One clear example is banning someone for participating on a community the mod doesn't like. Admins should learn from reddit's mistakes and limit what mods can and can't do.

But what’s the actual problem with the ability for posts to have negative scores?

It incentives self censorship that turns sites into echo chambers. e.g. Reddit

There's currently nothing stopping a mod from creating a bot to do the same. Maybe it's already a thing.

Do you have an example of a technology that is more efficient than human labor, doesn't have those side effects and was successfully held back just to keep jobs?

Here

I like being able to say what I want without being banned by a power-tripping mod

There's currently nothing stopping a mod from creating a bot that deletes comments below certain threshold or that bans users for commenting on communities they don't approve like they did on Reddit. Only site policies can prevent that.

I agree, but there already is a karma system.

Nobody cared at all

The mods cared. There were many bots used by moderators that relied on karma, the main one being automoderator.

It did if your karma was low enough. It also affected whether your votes were counted or not.