i agree that this thing exists and i consider it ok most of the times but i draw the line somewhere.

Voting for your friend or people you have formed relationships it's really ok but i think we need to go a step further. We can let them know if they keep on posting non quality posts or show them that with our upvotes. If they are friends they will understand if we explain them.

You see the goal here isn't just to make some money. In order to make more and at the same time be part of something bigger we have to keep always in mind the best about our platform.

What i do is upvoting the majority of my friends-people that follow with a certain % if they have quality posts. If they don't and post a picture for example multiple times, will just give them lover votes in order to make that fair for everybody. Some have even asked me what was my reason behind this and when i explained them they totally understand it, they kept on following me and upvote me and nothing changed.

Another thing that leads to circle jerking is the interface. If it takes too long to find new people with quality posts and the procedure to achieve that is hard then you obviously aren't gonna do that. I something needs to be done with this too.

Overall it's ok to vote for your friends but try to be fair cause the next day you may find a new one or lose an old one!