Violeta on "conditional appreciation" and the problem of "I will if you do" on the Internet

The comment above appeared on one of my photos in 500px (link here), and it gave me the reason to share some thoughts on a very common problem all over the Internet.

Have you seen the "I will follow you, if you follow me", or in this case, "vote + fave if you..."?

For some people it might work just fine, they would go and check out the other person's profile, maybe fave, comment, no problem. But for everyone with common sense it feels pushy and rather negative.

For an artist especially, it's very insulting.

• Why does your appreciation for my art have to be under conditions?
• Do you really like my photo or you're shamelessly promoting your own gallery?
• If you like the photo, as you state in your comment, why don't you just put it to your favourites collection, and let me decide, if I can spare my time to check out your profile?
• What if I already checked it, but didn't like anything I saw? How would you know that? I don't want to lie to you, but you might not take criticism. (and this is a very common problem all over the internet, especially Facebook, but that's a different, very long topic)
• Isn't one major website enough for you to showcase your work, so you have to mooch on other people's profiles?

I do always check the profiles of people who comment, fave, follow, like, +1 or whatever type of interaction is available on the websites. And if I find something good, I let the people know - either by liking, faving, or sending a message. But if I don't, which is more often, I just move on, or simply thank back for their appreciation.

I don't like being pushed towards interaction I might not want to deal with, or not have the time for.

I'm curious if any of you have experienced something like that, and your thoughts about it in general. 

Violeta