Think of it like Google's PageRank algorithm. Instead of a centralized ranking algorithm, steemit's algorithm is decentralized and it makes use of upvotes (and downvotes) for the people and bots to communicate with each other. The bots are scanning all of the posts, trying to find posts that will attract a whale vote (vote from someone with a high value account) so that they can earn curation rewards. So the more low value accounts that your post attracts, the more likely it is to be seen and voted later by a voter with a high value account, which will increase your author rewards and the bots' curation rewards.

Also, that view counter is not entirely accurate. I don't think it counts views from people who use other interfaces to view your post.

Finally, yes, individual posts are very much like a lottery, but the people who keep putting up high quality content consistently get increasingly better odds in the lottery as time goes on.