Will the people who run the staking pools be taking a larger portion of the staking payments than the people who contribute ADA to stake in the pool? I assume that is the case because the interest in running a pool seems to be high, profit seems like a good motivator. Also, if the pool you are staking in tries to verify a false transaction, will you loose your staked ADA because you chose a bad pool to use?
Here’s a good discussion from Charles of your question, including if pools fail their duty in some way: https://youtu.be/4r_5w0uHARA?t=28m5s
Pool owners will keep some % of the total rewards as incentive for them to run the pool. In addition, to differentiate themselves, they may also be involved in some community beneficial projects that additionally give you a reason to vote for them. In this case your vote is not just a vote for technical specs of a node machine, it’s a vote for projects you think best grow the community and increase the value of your underlying ADA stake.
Well that answers everything, thank you for that!