Ok, so upvoting is for... visibility?
I don't get get it.
I shame people for liking their comments on fb, but somehow on steemit it's a basic necessity?
To me this seems extremely fishy... like the system is fundamentally fucked up. WHY WOULD YOU MAKE IT A BASIC NECESSITY TO HAVE TO UPVOTE YOUR STUFF?!
That's for OTHER PEOPLE to do!!!
Upvoting moves your comment higher and also uses some of your voting power (I believe or else people would always upvote) You can get curation rewards on your upvoted comments too (if that is still the case as I am almost positive it is). The reputation score you have without any votes yet in comments will put you on top of those with lower reputation without comments. My upvote generates about $.01 and that means if I upvote my comment, it will be on top of other users with $.01 that have a lower reputation too. Hopefully that makes sense, but feel free to ask for more clarity if it did not.