Some accounts are deleting their posts after a few downvotes. It’s devastating on communities like c/asklemmy.
Lemmy doesn’t track an account’s karma like reddit. So, all downvotes will be isolated to your post or comment and won’t affect your account—unless you wrote something truly horrible.
Remember lemmy is a community effort. Deleting a post also removes all comments on it. So you are not only robbing the effort others put in, you are actively removing knowledge from the fediverse. Others won’t be able to find it through search and lemmy will seem lonelier than it already is.
Sometimes, we say a thing we meant, but then later we learn a new thing or our perspective on an issue changes. That old post/comments can feel quite embarrassing or shameful, and removing it (or editing the original content out) can feel like the only way to still feel like you belong. If the choice is between removing one piece of your history here, or removing yourself from the community, the one piece feels like the superior choice. IF that’s the alternative.