I personally disagree with this. The whole purpose of gaining steem power is for more influence. Self voting makes your comments more visible and is a way to get a return on your investment over the long haul. I self upvote because it is so tough to get the community to upvote articles. I think this is more ethical than paying for a bot to vote you.

Understand both sides. If steemit didn't allow you to upvote and there was a back door trick then I would agree with you. However, it is an incentive of putting in an actual investment.