It's quite a thoughtful post. Excessively reliant on upvotes brings desperation quite easily. Upvotes are never based on the quality of the content but on things I haven't really figured out yet.

However, I feel like upvotes and a person’s motivation to improve are not promotional inversely. Instead the relation has an optimal point for direct proportionality. If one continued to get upvotes for quality one wants to improve. If the quality drops and the upvotes are still there, that's a harm.