Interesting thoughts.

One hindrance to dtube becoming a pirates paradise is down-votes. In-fact, any controversial content will have trouble thriving on a steem platform.

This doesn't mean that controversial content cant be hosted on IPFS or censored on dtube. It just means that SP can't be used to pay the hosting fees, and that content will require more vote power compared to neutral content to get the same rewards.

For this reason, I think down-votes should be eliminated. Controversial content is simply more valuable than neutral boring content, however it can not thrive if a single user with an agenda can obliterate the rewards it would receive.