Very nicely written @logiczombie,

You seem to have a very deep understanding of economics, much more than myself. My understanding of the ecosystem here is pretty basic in comparison, but I do not think burning is the key to driving intrinsic value. I think use case (as you mentioned with advertising of products/services), and adoption on a higher scale is what will drive our intrinsic value here.

I'm very hard pressed to see what burning a bunch of Steem will do if no new users are arriving, other than maybe give the middle class a little more of a chance to close the wealth gap, and I still don't think burning will make a huge difference in this aspect, due to the limited sharepool, and how sharepool leverage/influence works. The reward pool is still being drained with the burned Steem, so it probably doesn't do much in this aspect.

Centralized platforms don't seem to want too much chit chat of crypto platforms like this being mentioned in their environment. Here's one such example, and not the first instance I have heard of these strange "shadow bans."

Nice read, I think you raise some great points to consider here @logiczombie!