Would you upvote for the sake of up voting? Or would you genuinely read the content? For the same reason someone would post to get auto upvotes. Is the same reason why someone would auto upvote... To upvote.
You have a good counter idea to steem approach though. If steem can find a way to work without pissing everyone off, then all you would need to do is hopefully flip the idea around and wham. Call it timeets
I've been manually curating for nearly two years. I've read or viewed everything I've voted for, so that wouldn't change. I can't upvote for the sake of upvoting. Take this post for instance. I don't always agree with shattenjaegers views, but I often vote for his work if I do agree. I have to read it first. What if this post said I'm an asshole? Some might want to vote for that, but I certainly wouldn't. If I didn't read, I'd be calling myself an asshole. Who does that? Assholes.