Hi @samuel-swinton
I appreciate your courteous response.

Yes I understand the thinking that ''The rewards pool consistently increased the supply of Steem making it less valuable.'' However I believe that thinking is based on a series of misconceptions.

One is the thinking that the road to creating more widespread adoption is to focus on the quality of of posts. This thinking may also have contributed to the adoption of free flags. It is the path to a shrinking user base.

Another is that scarcity will drive up the price. At this stage of the game creating demand for new accounts and retaining them should be out number one priority. And they need to be provided a clear and fair path for growing their stake without any investment (stop the evaporating dust payments for small accounts) and start them off with a delegation that will allow them to receive curation rewards. The people who have spare cash will be far more likely to invest when they are hooked.

Another is the attempts to attract 'investors' the preferred investor seem to be the predatory kind who are looking to take more out than they put in. You may remember what happened to the investor @greenman who was just sharing the love around. From my perspective more investors of his caliber are the ones we desperately need. And there are plenty of them out there

i could go on : )