I gave @commentrewarder a try and might use it more especially on days with more than 1 post or in the rare occasions where I write about something Hive related.
In a way you can look at autovotes/trails as a subscription method similar to patreon, you really like the content this author is generating and it doesn't "cost" you anything to consistently support this author.
This is pretty much how I optimally see the Autovotes. However, I don't think anyone would actually buy and power up Hive just to support an author they like. In reality, it's more something in the line of 'upvote4upvote' even though I think it's kind of fine as long as the content itself isn't just farming also because it actually forces the users to be invested in Hive.
If anything, it all remains an imperfect model with many flaws but I still love it after all these years regardless.