A great example is that my girlfriend is on Steemit and I know that if I don't upvote and resteem what she writes she'll get mad. Fortunately she puts a lot of work into what she writes so I don't feel bad about it, but it's a microcosm of what you are describing.

Why not accomplish both?
The action to upvote is levied by [your] account's reputation score, an index of your blockchain voting history (collective upvotes, comments, and resteems). Should justify reason plenty, however, there are larger forces at work that reason escapes the rhythm of logic. 

I am unaware of sorting algorithms for the feed, similar to Facebook, in action here on Steemit, but if there is, it's much more flexible than the big Blue page. Steemit could employ automated bot services and controller/curators to divvy the flow of traffic, content, and category. SMT seems to offer at least partial complex to find a solution to financial exchange for content type, perhaps Proof-of-Brain concept may light the way to truly thoughtful, honest, information to earn author's weight in value.

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