I totally agree with your point of view.
On the other hand, though, I suppose they can follow/unfollow who they like. It's when they try to force people to do things their way that bothers me. If it makes its way into the web interface or a new hard-fork, fair enough.
People can upvote their own comments on my posts all they want. Indeed, I wrote a post today inviting them to do so...
https://steemit.com/bullybot/@davidnx/feel-free-to-upvote-yourself-here-bullybot-project
No one's bothered to do so though, apart from me. :)
I just mute or ignore, I give a large vote to anyone who makes a full comment on my post that is a full sentence. I'll take a look at your article @davidnx. I don't vote on my comments but when beginning Steemit everyone was told to upvote their articles and after the couple last hardforks up vote their comments too...😏