Steem Dollars have, for me, always been a quandary.
On the one hand, it has been really nice to have them as an option. On the other, I realize that having the power to demand a certain dollar amount of Steem at any time can only lead to Steem inflation.
I don't know that I am ready to let go of the Steem Dollar, but, at the same time, I don't know if Steemit can survive with it.
It leads not specifically to inflation but to leverage. That is, increased inflation when the STEEM price is declining but decreased inflation when the STEEM price is rising (i.e. $1 paid out in SBD rewards can only demand a smaller number of appreciated STEEM)
Nonsensical to you perhaps. Not to me. On the basis of that reasoning we don't need SD anyway since we have USDt or real USD.
We will not agree on this so let's just leave it there.
Why not offer a competing and potentially superior USD peg token within the ecosystem instead of using something external? Unless I'm wrong, Tether has 10 minute (average, so you could be waiting 30 minutes+ sometimes) confirmation times because it's built on Omni which is built on the Bitcoin blockchain. Steem blocks are 3 seconds apart. Nowhere do I see Tether being advertised as speedy.
It might be a longshot but Steem's SBD has the chance of being a popular and possibly even de facto USD pegged token in the cryptocurrency world as it expands to include more than just computer nerds (in line with the goal of Steem).
I think it is dependent on how many people it brings in. It might be useful to get some more expert economic opinion on this - I wonder if there are any economists in the community who can look at this?
That is the heart of the problem I think. We want what is best for Steem but common sense says to hold onto those SD if we think the price will fall. Multiply that by a thousand or ten thousand and it is a problem for demand. On an individual basis it makes sense because we want to increase our holdings but as a community it hurts us.