- If Steem subscriptions stop or slow, and SP starts to be liquidated on the market, the price can crash.
SP is just a share of a company. At some point (but not from the start), each company has to earn money to compensate the costs (like costs of employees - authors, curators, etc). At some point Steemit would have to have business model, which could compensate this 5% of inflation. This could be ads, special promotion content, even some fancy layouts for Steemit profiles. There will be a lot of possibilities.
Ignoring two critical points. 1. Growth of the Steemit population. If population of steemit more than doubles every year, demand for steem will outpace inflation. In truth, population growth of over 10% would probably be sufficient as only 10% of new money created goes into liquid money. 2. If products and services created by steemit population increase demand for Steem by more than 10% also negates growth of money supply. I suspect that for at least a few years, demand for steem will greatly outstrip money creation without the need for ads. Strongly doubt that ads will ever be used as revenue generating for Steemit, Inc. Users may allow others to advertise on their blog, but steemit won't need it. If it does, this enterprise likely has failed. This is about increasing demand for the underlying crypto: steem, which everyone at Steemit has a great deal of.