Well, investors in STEEM are very similar to shareholders in a company. Which does better for shareholders, a company that has very good customer service or one that has bad customer service? I think the former. Good customer service is a win-win situation for everyone...the network can expect to get more customers through recommendations...and more customers should likely increase the market cap of STEEM ... which means capital gains for shareholders :D

Also, I'm new here but if you want to optimise how much money you can make from it 'how to win friends and influence people' is probably a better strategy than 'how to lose friends and alienate people' type of approach in my opinion! Haha... ;) Whereas on Reddit for example I might take a completely different approach (because money isn't tied to upvotes/downvotes), so it doesn't matter in that regard if you just want to downvote people you might disagree with LOL

And thirdly upvoting doesn't actually cost the up-voter any money (might be a bit different if it did!!! ;) )