I really like your thought process, explanations and vision for Steem. However, I disagree with your conclusions.
I don't think SPS is necessary especially if it takes away from author/curation reward pool. If SPS is funded with removal of interests on SP that would make more sense to me. I do think EIP is a positive change.
My reason is making Steem an attractive asset to invest. Simple economics suggest more people buy and power up than sell prices go up. I think EIP will make Steem more attractive. Primarily, because most social media users are content consumer and not content creators. Giving content consumers a fair chance to be rewarded by investing will create a better economics. I think institutional investors would follow the suit, if retail is happy to invest.
Even yourself mention in one of the comments the importance of the token price. That will be the biggest marketing needed.
Bottomline, if average users are not interested to invest their hard earned money into Steem why should large investors bother? For these reasons EIP makes sense to me, and SPS seems to undermine that. I like EIP, but with combination of SPS that potential could take away from authors/curators probably brings us back to where we are right now.
Actually, I like to think about the SPS as being able to separate direct funding from voting based funding. Imagine that you transitioned all of Utopian to fund its activities based on SPS. It's more stable and you have better control of how much goes out to whom with better accountability. So whatever % utopian is allocating from the rewards pool now can be shifted to this instead, and it doesn't have to be a loss relative to today. Of course with a fixed ratio going to SPS, it's not flexible enough to do things like "send remaining funds back into the reward pool" but that would be neat too, wouldn't it? (Can be one of the first things funded if it's desired)
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The basic difference between SPS drawing from inflation (rewards pool) directly and @utopian using their earned rewards to do so is that the former is a tax over which individuals have zero say over how much they pay for what, and @utopian has complete and total control over how they spend their personal funds.
Taxation is theft. Goons always take charge of any taxation, because thieves steal. If voluntary contributions aren't forthcoming for development, there's a good reason for that.
Irrelevant. How the inflation is allocated is what matters. You are assuming that the stakeholders already own their share of inflation, and that is not a stance I agree with. It's a subtle difference between having a say in how things should be allocated and assuming it's yours to begin with and you are doing charity. Downvotes make it clear that this is not how it works, or should be interpreted.
If it doesn't work, then inflation doesn't make any sense. Get rid of it altogether.
No, I assume that stakeholders prefer to direct where rewards go, and not have less say. I don't think that's irrelevant at all, but indeed, the heart of the matter. You're starting to play semantics, putting words in my mouth, and other logical fallacies, which aren't going to advance the debate.
Taxing inflation for SPS removes skin in the game, and I'm agin' it. If proposals can't generate voluntary support via the rewards mechanism, they shouldn't be undertaken involuntarily. I'm not particularly happy witnesses are supported via taxation. SPS being proposed to be funded via the same mechanism only proves the slippery slope exists regarding taxation and democracy. If SPS is funded that way, it won't be the last thing that is, and eventually Steem will be controlled by deals in smoky backrooms by corrupt politicians.
Save your grandstanding about inflation for folks that will be swayed by it. Inflation isn't the problem, it's involuntary expenditures of it. We're here voluntarily. Let's keep rewards voluntary too, or let's just get rid of Steem altogether.
It's just as silly when I use the tactic, isn't it?
You realize that stakeholders do have a say in how the inflation that was redirected to the SPS is allocated, so I don't see how this helps your argument.
And my point about inflation is simple. If the way inflation is being allocated is not providing value to the platform as a whole (e.g. allocated efficiently), then it's just dumb dilution and is downward pressure on the price. Simple as that.
The code creates incentive to act for users. Presently the users are encouraged to extract rewards through financial manipulation that is dropping the marketcap of Steem steadily, and keeps the price from rising. SPS isn't doing that since it hasn't been introduced yet.
Your point about inflation is well taken, but code, whether to effect a tax that further decreases rewards flowing to the Marketing Dept. (content creators, dapps, etc.) and instead encourage financial manipulation to extract those rewards using the power of subtantial stake, or to create a tax that decreases rewards flowing to the Marketing Dept. and divert those rewards to the Development Dept., is the basis for why the inflation is allocated the way it is.
I agree that allocation of the inflation is putting downwards pressure on the price, and if we allow SPS to take 10% of the inflation, the decrease in rewards received by creators will be more than 40% from the current situation. I predict an exodus of creators, and an absence of new users, as well as immense powerdowns from every substantial stakeholder so that they can sell Steem as soon as possible, because the price will crash as the market disappears.
Steem is nothing without it's market. It's no more a currency than the first videogame ever, Pong, without buyers. Without creators there will be no one interested in buying any Steem, because it is their posts and comments that draw eyeballs, as well as the games and other attractions that are also content.
This is probably our last chance to avoid that terrible circumstance. Let's hope we avoid it, and our Steem retains it's present (dismal) value.