Whew… That was a lot to read. At some point I started skimming over some of the insightful side-debates about political views in the real world. I’m sorry if I have missed some crucial points, but in the interest of my own time, this is my 0.000002 ADA.
Cardano, through its (to be built) governance system would have the potential to go beyond the proportional rewarding of keeping up the network (or in form of stake pools, incentivizing others to do so). See @ADALove’s excellent thread Rewarding Our Community’s Contributions for ideas on what I have in mind.
But as long as one has to buy into Cardano by using other cryptocurrencies or fiat, or running expensive hardware, the more wealthy (or financially more invested) people will simply have the higher rewards, because that is how the system is set up. There is an argument to be made that this is in fact fair. It is not optimal, so therefore I wish we could find a way to reward people who are bringing value to Cardano and its ecosystem, as one of the major pull-factors can be contributed to it’s claim to be
the first blockchain platform to evolve out of a scientific philosophy and a research-first driven approach.
I do not have an answer at this time, what those concrete incentives will be. Part of the reason though is the fact that the vast majority of Cardano has not been built yet. It is good to think ahead, but we should not fall into the trap of wasting time on thinking how comparatively little ADA we hold and that there are whales that hold so much value. I would like to see us to come up with great visions and ideas on how we can use what we have here (many people with unique backgrounds with their own dreams and ideals) and build something we all benefit from. Let’s go for the win-win.