I love checking in to see what type of post you did for the day that got my auto-vote.
Last year, I would have argued with your logic and even had you telling me that you have to upvote those you like 1st. Times have changed, you will get no blame from me on your current views.
The system is what it is and 99% of the people are doing what you say they just claim they don't buy a few smart steem purchases show even a handful of the top twenty accounts are selling their votes. Why should anyone who wants to make money manually vote?
We just need more exchanges to sell steem on and more ways to make an easy buck or at least that is the user base consciousness as shown by most.