i don't help other people for any other reason than wanting to surround myself with happier people rather than unhappy people...and there are both in my neighborhood.
online is just a pretend world. i live in a real world of rats and garbage and sh1tty and punitive and ruthless landlords, and people who live in a completely different economy than the economy of the 'normal' united states.
my world is filled with people who self-medicate with alcohol, Rx drugs, weed, various party drugs...who self-validate by purchasing clothing, cars, and electronic devices...who are so deeply entrenched in the system of buying and getting, that it is all they can imagine...because life is short...so you need to get yours before your picture is the one above the santeria candles in the cardboard box on the sidewalk for 3 or 4 days.
not all of these people are bad people...and not all of the supposedly good people are good people.
what i do is seek out those who exhibit a spark of the ability to relate to another person...because not everyone can or will...and i try to make a connection with that one, real, live person.
what you are suggesting sounds like what china is trying to do...or what the people in the U.S. have let their FICO scores do: create an imaginary sense of self worth that can and will break down when the going gets rough.
when the going gets rough is when you actually know who friends are...and it is also when you can see the rough going in another person that you should be giving help.
my life on the internet...all reddit, and paying my bills and checking the weather, is pleasant...but it isn't real.
the dog poo on the sidewalk outside my front door is real...and i need to either clean up the dog poo myself, or else befriend the person who is walking the dog so that that person realizes that it isn't nice to let their dog empty their bladder and bowels outside my living room window which sits right at sidewalk level.
i do believe in the power of spiritual realms beyond and around us, but i don't pretend to understand how and why they work.
all i know is the right here and the right now.
everything else is just my imagination...and it doesn't really count, as far as i'm concerned.
religion has tried to do this, but the central teachings of christianity (the only religion with which i'm intimately familiar) are "love thy neighbor as thyself" and "turn the other cheek" and "go they way and sin no more"...and we can't even do these three things.
most people couldn't give you a realistic definition of the first and the second...and the third is for personal use.
the core mythology of christianity doesn't really make any difference in anyone's daily life. whether christ was nailed on a cross, died, and was buried in a tomb and rose three days later is completely irrelevant to our behavior on a daily basis in the real world.
what does make a difference is those three tenets of christianity...but they're so difficult that they are ignored by most, if not all, christians.
so, religion...at least christianity, has failed to inspire us to peace...and i have no idea whether the other two western religions would or could do any better. i don't presume to speak for the eastern religions, but i suspect that Jainism may be closer to the reality of things than any other belief system...but westerners would just find Jainism laughable and un-scientific.
perhaps your idea is laudable, but making the world better is much messier than writing code and designing a website and telling people to hit buttons to upvote and downvote each other.
we will agree to disagree. perhaps we will meet in another place, at another time.