Loving it, Max!!! As usual, I will cite more examples to back you up, from my own personal experiences. KARMA is a universal truth, as far as I'm concerned. Stripped down to it's bare essentials, it is basically the same as the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" which is found in the Bible as well...

The Golden Rule (essentially "treat others the way you would like to be treated yourself") is found in the Christian Bible very clearly in a few places:
Matthew 7:12: "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."
Luke 6:31: "Do to others as you would have them do to you."
The same concept can also be found in the Old Testament law of Moses:
Leviticus 19:18: “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord."
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That establishes it as a universal observance that treating others well results in reciprocity. Found in all major religions that I know of...

Here's how I see it for Steemit:
It's set up here so that it does pay to give freely to others. It comes back quickly, in curation rewards and a bit slower in the weekly rewards. People ask me all the time "Where does the money come from" and it seems to me that we are sharing the profits that would otherwise go to a major corporation and that is why it seems there is so much to go around!!! We are Sharing and receiving based on the INPUT we give, and instead of most of that going to an OWNER, it is redistributed back to the content contributors. WE ARE THE OWNERS, In Effect! We all have a STAKE in STEEMIT... Remember, this is POS or Proof of Stake Mining! The content generated is the VALUE We Add to the Website!

I noticed that giving to others with comments, votes, kind words, and the occasional "seed money" (gifts sent to wallets) does pay off, and in "Paying It Forward" you also get noticed by the bigger fishes. I have many good folks who follow my content, some with auto-voter and some seek it out and read it on a regular basis. I thank you ALL, and it is reaching a self-sustaining level, I believe. I'm not gonna brag about specifics, but I have found that people notice when someone reaches out to help others. MAX is good at this, and his growth is APPARENT! I see this all over the place, as well. MANY People "get it", and I believe the platform actually promotes it. Call it a "gift economy" or whatever, names can't do it justice, but once you dig on and see how t works, it demonstrates many universal truths that have been hidden from us for so long. They have always been there, just shrouded by the "world system" of greed and "me first"... OPEN YOUR EYES, a Better Way is Here!