I fully agree, there's nothing more off putting than someone begging for upvotes or spamming low quality content. What made me stay on this site was the caring nature of people here, it's a world away from the majority of social media. I've been trying to be genuine (even if I can be opinionated sometimes) and it seems to be slowly paying off.
Really love your steemit confessional post, it resonated with me a great deal.