C'mon. Quit pretending you don't say what you say.

"unconditionally"

"apart from increasing the inflation (and donations, which are sufficiently discussed elsewhere in this thread, though mostly not by me),"

For someone who claims to make statements that are absolutely true and claims to be dropping mics, you're awfully careless when it comes to facts and logic (and quoting accurately).

Without content, Steem would have no value. No investment would occur

I can 100% prove this wrong for the simple reason that even without content, at some price i would invest in it. I can entirely guarantee it would not have no value. You do not understand how cryptocurrency markets work.

Though I'm confident enough that I wouldn't be the only one this is merely proof that your absolutist statement is wrong and not an estimate of what its value would be. I suspect a lot higher than due to my investment alone.

Furthermore without author rewards it would also still have content, just as countless other user-contributed content platforms have content without rewards.