If Steem goes anywhere near zero, Steemit Inc won't be able to pay for development or their RPC node or their image storage. Consensus witnesses would have to pay for for running the chain out of their pockets. With MIRA, however, that wouldn't necessarily be too expensive as the chain would likely be like a ghost town. STEEM would probably get delisted from all crypto exchanges except for the likes of Blocktrades.
I wouldn't completely stop posting and might also buy because the rewards would be quite something in STEEM terms. There could still be a small chance of a restart. The chain and SMTs could be offered to websites nearly for free. STEEM tokens (the lottery tickets) would get cheaper and the odds of winning slimmer but the win would be at least an order of magnitude larger.
I don't think it will be that expensive to run the chain, the cost for steemit Inc is likely mostly their employees.
I don't think it will be a ghost town either, just a different crowd. Would probably be a good time for many as the focus will be off earning.
Not necessarily delisted as some of them are paid listings I believe.
Employees are absolutely the largest individual cost. But I recall @exyle saying once that in 2018 Steemit, Inc paid two million dollars to Amazon Web Services. Running a witness server is between $500 and $800 a month these days. With witness rewards close to zero, that money would have to come from their own pockets. Also, there are nodes other than witness nodes to pay for.
I don't think it will be a ghost town either, just a different crowd. Would probably be a good time for many as the focus will be off earning.
Not necessarily delisted as some of them are paid listings I believe.
Witness servers aren't that much by a long shot, or at least do not need to be.
This is what @exyle has to say about that. Start from 5:10. He has actually run a witness server.
Definitely doesn't have to be anywhere near 500 dollars.
How do you know?
I am part of a witness team.
Ok. What you're saying is good news.
How much do you pay for a witness server at the moment?