@stellabelle, I could see a part of your heart in this post. Something coming from the guts while sharing your path in steemit from those early days.

The earlier adaptors of steemit worked really hard and sincerely to support and build the platform and so know the pain and struggle first hand. There was this zeal to give and support each other in the earlier steemiand. The newer generation steemians appear to be inspired more from the $$$ in trending page than anything else and there is this notion that more followers means more upvotes means more payout. The influence or weightage that SP brings is lost on many newbies. So I see them commenting 'I upvoted and followed you, now you follow me' thingy, when those upvotes really do not contribute to anything.
In the last 55 days about 1 Lakh+ new accounts are added to the total of about 2.6Lakh total steemit account. That means 40% of steemit accounts have come into being in just last say 2 months. Perhaps when such a large number of new accounts come in, it is but natural that some number of them start spamming.
I had commented in another blog that many of the steemians are not bloggers or with any special skills, but are just "accidental bloggers" If not for steemit, they wouldn't even type a single letter on their computer to blog in any other platform. It is not hard to see why?. The payments of course is the single largest magnet that draws all the iron men in the society to the platform. But I guess that's just being human after all.
So I feel spamming will continue. While the present breed learn their lesson and correct themselves, another new entrant breed will start it again and cycle continues. That is the price to pay on a growing platform where 1000s are joining everyday.
Instead I suggest one just ignores such comments and pass on.
I simply ask such commentators with a single liner "Why?". I never get any reply. And with some I say."I don't follow you, please don't follow me" that sure throws them offguard. With some interesting profiles I reply "I will read your next 5 blogs and if it interests me, I shall follow you, else No. But in return you don't need to follow me"