Of course this doesn't apply to everyone.
There are a lot of people on Steemit who leave great comments and don't get any upvotes for that. I try to reward those people because they take the time to read your content and to also leave some feedback for it. That's a lot of time they could invest into something different, and we should appreciate their effort.
But not everyone deserves an upvote even tho others also take some of their free time to give you feedback. There are situations where certain comments don't add anything to what you said in your article.
We all know those type of comments and we've received at least one in our "writing career", and they sound like this "Good job!" or "Nice article!" or "Wow, great topic you chose there!" and anything similar to that.
Now, don't get me wrong - I don't get mad when I receive those kind of comments. But I don't get excited either. I appreciate them, but not enough to give them an upvote. Here's why - everyone can write those type of comments on any article without actually reading anything.
You don't need to consume any type of content to leave a comment like that and I'm sure, and I mean REALLY sure that if someone, at some point, writes an article and in the middle of it writes something like "Fuck everyone who leaves a comment saying 'nice article!' ", someone will actually write a comment like that.
Why? Because that person probably didn't even read the article itself and just adds a comment hoping to get an upvote from the author and receive some free money. That's one of the main reasons I reply to those comments, but I do not upvote them.
But of course, there's another type of person who writes a different type of comment that we all hate - "Nice, plz follow and upvote!" Nice job saving time by not writing 3 letters by the way!
Asking people to follow and upvote your content when you add absolutely no value, when you don't share or post anything interesting and when your entire profile is filled with memes you think are funny, is plain stupid.
No, I'm not gonna follow you until you prove that you can come up with something interesting for me to consume and I'm certainly not gonna upvote the memes you like just because you like them.
I'll rather spend my voting power on people who actually take the time to write their own thing. Even if they don't, and they just take a photo and share it, as long as they invested effort into that and do it because they want to share something with you, that's A LOT better and deserves an upvote in comparison to your memes.
If you want your comments to be upvoted, there's one simple thing you need to do - read the article, understand what the author wants to say, and then express your own opinion.
Don't just repeat what the author says to prove you managed to read the entire article and don't write a huge comment just for the sake of doing it. If you like the article and you have a different point of view, write a comment and share it with other people. If you agree with what the author said and you'd like to add something more, then do that. If you don't agree with the author, say it in a comment and be polite about it.
I appreciate when people share their opinions in the comment section and I upvote them when they do it. I also appreciate those who tell me I did a good job and then leave, but writing "Great article!" is just telling me "I think this article is good, but you can't know if I read it or not" and I will say "Thank you", but I won't upvote it.
If you don't receive money for your comments, then it's a big chance you don't do it well. It may also be because some authors don't upvote comments, but I'm sure most of them will as long as you leave useful feedback.