'Views' is not a reliable number, lots of people look at the posts from other interfaces, steemdb, steemd, busy, etc, so views are not accurate.
If you learn the code you can make a custom interface that lets you do everything outside of this one.
Steemviz.com

A lot of people, me included, use bots to vote.
I use @steemvoter.
My main reasons are to vote when i'm away, and to populate a list of my favorite authors for when I get back.
Some people do it purely as mining the system.
So far that mining hasn't proven to be an issue, afaik.

I think after the hardfork that voting and posting will be very different.
Right now unless you are a whale sycophant you got nothing coming, but the rewards curve is supposed to make the new math a little more minnow friendly.

As for the steem, buy and hold, look at what btc is doing and know that this is a better system in many tech folks' opinions.
Granted there is drama, but as long as the whales and witnesses don't commit mass suicide the platform should be solid.
I know I have ordered stuff with 'money' from here.