I find it interesting that people can simultaneously argue that Monero’s tail emission is absolutely necessary to maintain long-term mining security, while also arguing that it trends toward effectively zero so it doesn't matter. If it truly trends toward zero and becomes barely noticeable, then it doesn’t materially change mining incentives or network security. But if it does materially impact mining incentives, then the inflation is significant. You can't have both. The same goes to Bitcoin discussions around future transaction fees. People constantly attach a $ price to future block fees, as if the economy of 2140 will still be dollar denominated. By the time the last Bitcoin block reward is mined, economic activity will be denominated in sats, not dollars. Transactions won’t “cost thousands of dollars” in the way people frame it today. People also project today’s mining environment infinitely into the future, without considering how incentives evolve over time. Early Bitcoin mining rewards were massive, which naturally incentivized large scale industrial mining operations to emerge and aggressively secure the network during its infancy. But as halvings continue, large industrial miners increasingly struggle with operational overhead, energy costs, debt structures, and margin compression. That opens the door for smallerscale miners and home miners to become more competitive. Bitcoin’s design seems to front-load security through big issuance incentives, then gradually transition toward a more decentralized mining space over time.

I never really thought about mining like that. It's interesting to think that huge mining operations today may actually become permanently unprofitable. I'd imagine that as the economy and usage of Bitcoin expands, not just home miners, but businesses will mine just to secure the network and create pool alliances to ensure their transactions don't get censored.