The number of posts does not influence the amount of rewards that are distributed. If the equivalent of 100 steem is allocated from the rewards pool per day then:
- If 100 posts receive payment then each post will receive an average of 1 steem.
- If instead we only have 10 posts then each one will receive 10 steem on average.
In either case the amount of SBD or the equivalent liquid steem would be the same (assuming each author selects 50/50 between liquid and SP).
What you are saying is correct, if nobody selected the 50/50 option then no liquid steem or SBD would be created but instead the equivalent amount of vested steem would take it's place in the form of SP.
I know I am over-simplifying in the example above, in reallity the rewards distribution takes the 30 day average from the reward pool (I am might be wrong it could be some other metric and not an average but I can't find the post where that is explained).
I am an engineer. I recall working with a very good engineer and his tag line was "show me the data". It is funny in the sense that everyone always knew he was going to say it. It was very effective though. People would always try to pitch their opinion and in the end, the data rules. I'm am willing to change my mind on the SBD reward, but in order to do that, you will need to "show me the data". With that said, I'll be eagerly waiting for proof that SBD is created from the reward pool and not just some post about it because I've seen many posts with incorrect information.
In lieu of actually looking at the code of the blockchain I am going to make the conjecture that the oficial Steem White Paper is an accurate description of it.
From page 26 of the Steem White Paper
From page 17:
If 75% of the inflation goes to the reward pool and 75% of the reward pool goes to author rewards it follows that the liquid portion of the post payouts comes from that same reward pool.
Now, over time that distribution may not be equal to the intended percentages due to the fluctuations of both the price of the Steem token and the 10% ceiling of debt ratio of Steem/SBD.
I understand that the above reasoning is not the same as showing empirical evidence. We could take two posts as samples. One with an SBD print rate of 100% and one with 0% to see if those percentages hold true. The tricky part is knowing what was the median price feed at the time of payout. But it's late and I need to go to sleep.
Too bad that https://steemdb.com/ is down (maybe it's being decomisioned?). On the front page it had stats showing the actual distribution of the tokens for the last 30 days.
That is correct. However it does not say anywhere that SBD is taken from the reward pool.
Still waiting for that data that proves that SBD is taken from that reward pool.