I feel manipulated by the karma. It has no value and yet I care when i get downvoted. It's a huge warning sign to get off reddit and into a healthier community.
I had like 20000 karma on some previous reddit account i deleted a few years back. Current one has 3000 karma or so. Because I post a lot, and I wrote things people agree with usually. But it's a echo chamber, and once I start to limit myself to writing things that are "safe" from a karma point of view, I'm literally just supporting the entire karma system.
It's something very Chinese about these points. They have this social system where citizens have a score, and if they get too low, they can't get loans and whatnot. Pretty much what the show black mirror was showing, and China now has it.