I'm very well aware of those arguments, I've used them also in the past. But I think it's time to admit that we are not seeing any merchants adopting SBD as a currency. There is no other use besides cryptocurrency speculation and that's not a core business of Steem.
Focusing on rewards that have value is focusing on the major selling point of Steem for now.
And what I'm saying is that it shouldn't be. Users who come because of money are too low quality to be good early adopters.
- They have very little loyalty, they will leave very soon when their earnings start to drop.
- They are not helping with the network effect because they do not make the system viral by recommending it to their friends (exept maybe for other low quality users).
Focusing on money has caused some bad publicity and made good people suspicious about the platform. For example: Andreas Antonopoulos and Publicism.