Any time I see someone say something like that, I immediately want to mute them. I have no one muted right now, but it's very tempted to mute such people.

You want quality followers who genuinely benefit from your content. Are they benefiting from your passion? Do they really care about what you're posting? If they do not, why are they following you?

Following does not mean upvoting. Upvoting is how we make money.

Upvoting by people who have a lot of SP invested in Steemit is of course way better than those who do not.

Will they resteem your content? Resteems are the one of the two best ways to get more followers.

(adding quality replies to other successful author's posts is the other)