High inflation is a huge challenge for Steem and it is very possible that paying out less % inflation (via burning) would increase the price of Steem and therefore ultimately increase the amount (in purchasing power terms) that can be sustainably paid out without continuing to drive the price of STEEM down by 99% and wrecking everything.
Of course that may not be true, but it is a reasonable debate and matter for voting.
However, there is a flaw in that strategy. Ideally, burning should be done after fairly wide adoption as a price pump, not in the early stages. Considering that there are a little over 11000 people with 500+ SP in their accounts, this project is a bad idea. I thought it was for the SBD peg, no?
Everyone upvoting these posts are actually hurting authors while increasing their own share of the network. It has been my understanding that it was somehow maintaining the SBD peg, but if it is not, I would have to say, respectfully, that I find this to be unethical. And I would encourage you to end this operation.
For major participants to actively be taking rewards out of the system that could go to legitimate content producers while gaining curation rewards for themselves is a problem. For witnesses it could even be a legal liability, because it is a manipulation of the economy within Steem.
@hobo.media was upvoting it as well, so please don't take that as any kind of threat. I am just suggesting that this project close down because I cannot see how this is appropriate for any reason short of it somehow being a protection to the SBD peg. If it improves systemic health that is one thing, but holder happiness is subtly different from systemic health.
If your concern is keeping inflation down, might I suggest another tactic? Perhaps you can make a list of authors that would be willing to create long-form content, each post being completely unique and sacrifice the rewards for visibility. I would be willing to write 1 post per week through @hobo.info with a minimum of 500 words, all unique content relating to the HoboDAO project for the free visibility and set the author rewards to @null. I'm sure you could find many authors that are willing to sacrifice rewards for visibility of their projects/blogs. This could be a wholesome approach to your objective of shrinking the inflation rate.
It was always for a dual purpose, and part of that commitment to stakeholders is that the rewards be burned not sold, always being either buying pressure on STEEM (by using SBD to buy it) or neutral (by burning). For example, the SBD peg could be helped by using STEEM to buy SBD when SBD is undervalued. However, we don't do that because it would reintroduce the STEEM to the market, potentially hurting the price of STEEM.
I see that many other posts are now using burning (beneficiary to null), which is perfectly healthy and seems consistent with what you are suggesting. No one is required to support this or any other initiative. Vote how you like.
Finally, the biggest harm to the SBD peg at this point is the ever-decreasing price of STEEM. Cutting down on selling pressure can only help there too.
If every user started doing this, then there would be no social platform at all. Everyone would collect their 50%(ish) in curation for voting these and no one would actually vote for content. This doesn't sound like a good way to grow the ecosystem. The fact that more whales are now joining this instead of actually looking for quality content is likely terrible for growing the ecosystem. Sure it soaks up a little supply, but at what cost?
It is up to stakeholders to decide how to to vote.
If you don't think this is a good use of rewards, I would encourage you to downvote.
Personally I think the burden is on posters to create content which is compelling in its ability to add value to Steem. There is some of that, but also a lot that does not. That's just my own personal view though. Every stakeholder voter can decide for him- or her-self what is best.
The part about curation isn't really true though, because a lot of the votes are before 5 minutes (I see a lot at one minute) so curation gets returned to the pool. The percentage is much lower than 50%.
About curation, looking at the activity on your burn posts from the other day, that is simply not factual. Many of the largest votes came several hours after those were posted. Though I get what you are saying and why I said 50%(ish), as it will be above or below that number most likely.
While it is up to stakeholders, giving them a way they can (most likely) earn their curation rewards without worrying about the other half going to anyone seems like a great deal for them. Why help anyone else when I can pay myself in effect the entire vote value, with the other portion being burned, meaning I collected all the realized value from that vote.
Again, if everyone starts doing this, the system fails. Perhaps it's not something we should be championing?
The later votes won't do well with curation though (nowhere near 50%) simply because they are late in the stack. I personally vote on them late in order to reduce the Trending effect, but I know i'm giving up a lot of curation rewards by doing this.
I usually see at least $20 of votes within the first minute which means a lot of the curation rewards (on those votes) are being sent back to the pool and later votes are competing for scraps because of how curation works (you only earn good curation if you are one of the earlier voters).
No, that is silly logic. Think of it like dieting, or pretty much anything else. Too much of a good thing can be bad, but that doesn't make the good thing itself bad.
The amount that gets burned is up to stakeholder voters.