Thank you for your vote, I sincerely appreciate it. As to upvoting your comment, do you think it brought real value to the platform? Does it "deserve" an upvote or is this more of a "I did something for you (voted for your witness) because I expect something in return, not because I think you earned it by your actions as a witness"?

I wrote this post 11 months ago about reputation with the basic idea being, "What would happen if everyone did this?" If everyone purchased votes, would the platform have better content and better witnesses?

I do vote for comments often, but almost never when they ask for it in return for something. I try to vote based on my own personal subjective measure of value because I think that's what benefits the network the most, especially when we all do the same.