It's true. However we should be careful with who does this.

I can't agree more on the fact that minnows should upvote themselves. We are still in a place where we don't think our posts earn what they deserve, so we keep trying and hoarding for some upvotes. Any upvote is a good one.

When you look at whales upvoting their comments, I am like;

It's not like they need more to stand out from the crowd and are scavenging to get what they think they deserve.

There is a giant gap between whales and minnows and we need someone or something to make that gap smaller. Like you mentioned, there are bots out there trying to, but I am not sure if bots are the answer.

Personally, I try to involve and drag people along in my posts. For example I created a content and would love to encourage people to create their own post to enter (so they can earn some from that aswell along with the potential prize money). Aswell as my Steemit Collaborations where I try to shine some light on minnows who are barely getting anything for their cool posts.

I guess this is my contribution to the community and I hope to be able to do that for long. I hope to grow on Steemit and get to a place where my contribution starts counting in bigger numbers to help more Steemians.