Let's say SBD lured merchant, what benefit steem get from that? NONE but price collapse.
So you're dismissing network effect as a potentially enormous contribution to STEEM prices? Interesting.
Sophisticated investors understand this and they don't invest money into steem!
"Sophisticated investors" would likely understand the value or utility of a U.S. Dollar-pegged cryptocurrency and how it could greatly outweigh any pressures on STEEM prices. Also, those "sophisticated investors" would likely not invest in either STEEM or SBDs so long as the development and marketing of STEEM/Steemit is poor. This is a much larger issue than debt loads from SBDs.
As I said - I think like a businessman. I am one. There is much more value in SBDs for me as a potential merchant/investor using STEEM/SBDs for my business. If we want "to be smart," we need to stop confusing causes and effects and we need to stop trying to find reasons to eliminate features that will assist with onboarding users. STEEM/Steemit needs more people using the currency and platform. SBDs help with the onboarding issue, whether you want to believe that or not.