Well there's not much point in banning them when there are ways around that. Doesn't mean they are 'ok'. That is up to the greater community to judge. I give less votes to those who regularly self-vote, but I judge each case in itself.
I'm happy enough with what I earn curating others and self-voting the odd post would not make much difference to what I make. I may get judged if I do self-vote and it feels wrong anyway. Who am I to say what my posts are worth? It's not just about making money.
No vote for you, but you can have a !BEER
Like I said above: I see nothing wrong with my own selfvotes.
I made like 10 posts the last 2 years and those I voted without hesitation.
If I had a benevolent whale upvote each of my posts, how would that make it any different? After all, I could be a sock puppet account of that whale.
Whether I vote for a post or not, or even downvote, I decide by other factors like content, context and potential payout.
I left this comment for future reference mainly. I think, I explained my point pretty congruent in the OP :)
We can each think that what we do is okay :)
I think it's best to have freedom, but as I said, you get judged on what you do. Some will do the research into whether an account is a sock puppet. There are accounts that upvote every post and comment they do. That is selfish and I downvote some of them. Any behaviour should be assessed in context. I just decided some time ago that I didn't want to self-vote. I may have done it few times accidentally, but cancelled those out.
My voting on other accounts is mostly manual and I don't vote on my alts. I am happy to declare what those are if anyone cares.