Good question. My understanding is that voters don't get any rewards on comments so there wouldn't be a contest to vote first, but I'm not clear on that. In contrast, the OP seems to suggest it's the same or similar rules as top level posts which would imply commenter gets 50%, voters on comments would get 25%, and sub comment authors the other 25%. etc. down the line. ???
If voters don't get rewards on comments and 100% goes to the commenter, I don't see any reason to vote for anyone but yourself... not sure how that's going to work out.
Definitely needs clarification.
I think you should not focus solely on money. People will upvote great content no matter.
I think what it does, is you're not thinking about voting as a reward, but as a way of showing appreciation, I've been on here for a little over 4 weeks now.
At first, I treated the vote button in the same way I treat the Facebook, like button. Then slowly over time, as I started to realise the power of voting and how to get the maximum out of it; I started to try and think more tactfully.
I don't think I'm unique in this, I think a lot of people when they first discover Steemit, will treat the vote button in this way, simply because it seems they are the same, so it's no cognitive leap to come on here and just start voting for articles and comments you like. If someone says something that makes you, laugh or think differently in an intelligent way, you vote up.
In the future, nobody but the original Steemites will even be aware that there used to be rewards for voting, so it will matter even less, people will vote on what they like, whether it's a comment or post.
And that's a good thing :-)
CG