There are a lot of questions that I have about the developmental trajectory of the blockchain. I find it to be promising but the literature in regards to it needs to be updated to reflect present day reality.
For example, on page 11 of the Steem White Paper it states: "The primary concern of steem feed producers is to maintain a stable one-to-one conversion between SBD and the U.S. dollar." Clearly, with 1 SBD being about $5.5 USD at the time of this post, the originally envisioned stability for this token derived from the blockchain has simply not been maintained. Thus, this calls into question the "primary concern" of Witnesses as Steem feed producers - perhaps it is a characterization that is no longer applicable.
I raise this point because I see similar confusing statements in the SMT white paper. Therein it states, "Issuing a smt_create_operation requires payment of smt_creation_fee...If specified in SBD, an equivalent amount of STEEM will be accepted...Initially, smt_creation_fee will be set to 1 SBD and no means will be provided to update it."
To me the aforesaid language suggests that the creation fee for SMTs will be the nominal value of 1 SBD. So with 1 SBD being worth about $5.5 USD right now, wouldn't the SMT creation fee be about 1.22 Steem, considering Steem is about $4.5 USD? Yet your post states that "A single SMT is supposed to cost 1 USD worth of Steem." So which is it?
This leads me to my final point. Has there ever been any consideration for employing the delegated proof of stake functionality of the blockchain to allow every day users to delegate a certain portion of their Steem Power stakes towards maintaining the blockchain? Is it even possible? If so, would it address some of the technological constraints you have cited in your post?
My impression is that SBD is treated like Tether - wherever there is 1USD cost it actually means 1SBD. The market reality being so stubbornly uncooperative when it comes to keeping the assumed peg didn't escape Steem developers' attention, however all potential solutions come with their own problems. I don't feel competent to discuss them though.
I'm not sure what you mean in your final point. By voting for witnesses you already lend your Steem Power to the Steem network the only way possible. The bandwith limits, account costs etc. in Steem are there in order to control how much data is going to be put through the network. All cryptos face challenge of scaling and try to address it in different ways. Current hot idea seems to be blockchain sharding - a concept taken from databases (blockchains are subspecies of database after all), some coins name it differently, some try to apply more exotic solutions like IOTA or Nano (former RaiBlocks) - still sharding on steroids. It basically allows more nodes to support the network in parallel (compute more not directly chained blocks concurrently instead of competing/cooperating in production of consecutive blocks, one at a time). I'm not aware of Steem development going this way at the moment (I have not dug through all the issues yet though). Very quick blocks and all the operational cost controls leave it with (hopefully) enough breathing room, at least for now. There are also more pressing matters to attend to :o)
You seem to be very well versed in the technical aspects of blockchain tech. I must admit that this is not my area of specialty but that is precisely why your post caught my attention in the first place - you expressed your points of view in a manner that I could relate to, even if some points left me scratching my head! Much appreciated contribution - this is the quality content that Steemit should attract and strive to retain.
In regards to SBDs, I've written about the assumed peg extensively. I think there are many users that are unclear as to their branding. It's a predicament that needs to be addressed at some point, in my view, especially if adoption of the blockchain grows, as one would expect it to in the current environment.
As for my last point, I was curious as to whether you think that a future hard fork could potentially address some of the ensuing technical constraints that you anticipate as necessitating solutions for? Perhaps a hybrid of the current system of Witnesses as well as POS/sharding. I don't know if this is technically even possible with the blockchain in its current form, or whether it would require extensive rework. As you noted, probably not an immediate priority!
I do know that Witnesses collect "producer rewards" to varying degrees depending on their rank for maintaining the backend of the blockchain, so perhaps there could be some way for every day users to directly participate in that regard and alleviate their hardware burdens, aside from just voting for them. Just food for thought - again, not a technical expert, and just speaking from what I see other projects doing.
Nah, my understanding of blockchain technology is actually pretty shallow. I only started getting interested more after I got burned trying to daytrade when Cryptsy was still operational. Then I decided short term speculation is not for me, however investing for long term requires a lot more insight. Later I also run into Bitcoin problems (f.e. one of my earliest wallets contains drops from various faucets of 18k satoshi that would require 15k satoshi in minimal fee to transfer - actual fees were 100 times bigger than minimal then :o) ). So I started looking if someone else had similar problems and if/how they might be addressed.
This tech is absolutely fascinating, I wish I had more time to dig into it to the point where I would be on par with developers so I could talk with them meaningfully. I know tossing ideas is easy as I was on both sides - the one that tosses ideas without doing any actual work and the one that has to catch them, refine, test and then implement. So in my post I was only expressing concerns and expectations from user perspective, especially that Steem differs so much from other coins.