is it helping in disguise?

Just a genuine question that came up in my mind. I've been reading a lot of Insta posts about the (new) algorithm and that you get the most profile views / new followers / engagement if people respond to your post. Instagram will show your posts to more people if you have a lot of people responding. So I see a lot of people posting something that engages to react. Posts like: 'reply to this post and show me your artwork'. With the idea that you get more followers from that. But is that really why these people post this? Is it to 'help' an artist? Or is it to get more people on their profile and new followers themselves? The internet is so f**d up nowadays with bots and AI, that it's hard to believe sometimes there are people genuinely helping each other... Because let's be honest also.. how many people will follow you if you react to this post? Probably not a lot?