Thanks for the insight and a quick response @themarkymark!
Why does the % "lost" fluctuate so much with no correlation to $ amount that I can think of.
Is @whack.science onto something with the burned amount being lost due to users upvoting before the 15 min mark?
It fluctuates a lot because it is based on supply and has no idea what the real price is since it has no reference (witness price feeds) anymore. A few of us have been asking Steemit Inc to update condenser so it properly reflects the price in our current condition. Many services have made these changes already.
Yes, with HF20, you now return payouts to the reward pool if the vote is prior to 15 minutes. It isn't "burned" as the tokens are not removed from supply.
If the reward pool is 1,000 tokens, and your post is worth 10 tokens, you would typically get 7.5 tokens and curators would get 2.5 in a perfect world. With HF20 if a lot of those curators vote prior to 15 minutes, the post might only give 2 to curators instead of 2.5. So the reward pool would be 990.5 and not 990. So the 0.50 lost to curators isn't "burned", it is more "returned" for others to use.
That explains everything. Thanks for clearing things out!
I appreciate you taking the time to offer your knowledge and quickly respond to my questions, so I gave you my witness vote in return.