I don't know how the reward pool works.
The reward pool is not infinite. If we did not have downvotes people on average would get a lot less in my opinion.
That is speculation obviously but there would be no way to stop self voting or multiple accounts so that activity would ramp up.
Get your point with self voting but who does it hurt? "bot" accounts are just as bad.
I do not really care about self voting as much as other people. The problem with self voting is people are double dipping in the reward pool. Getting extra author rewards and getting curation rewards for your own post. Which is why I burned this post because I figured someone would complain. And someone did complain even though I do not get author rewards from the post 😅
To me self voting is only an issue if it is on posts that are not very "good." But good is subjective so it opens people up to downvotes. I "usually" avoid downvoting based on self voting because not everyone cares.