--snip--But from a business and hobbyist perspective, a small hobbyist miner committing time and investment contributing to a Bitcoin mining pool can't be very much different from the Sunday staker also contributing smaller stakes to an Ethereum validator pool.
That hobbyist miner is investing into actual hardware to run a software. Simple as that. The market ascribes value to the mined coins but it is not a fee for having a stake. I generally try to compare it to the dividend and stock analogy. When a hobbyist miner buys a S19, is he buying stock into a central body called bitcoin network? Doesn't seem so. He is just running a software.
When a Sunday staker (LOL, you have to tell me what the Sunday means, though) buys a little ETH to delegate to a pool, is he buying into a "share of the network"? Yes. Is he expecting a constant stream of income aka dividend simply for holding that "share/stock"? Yes.
The two seem very different to me. You could argue that the miner is also expecting a return but that is really just the way software works and market ascribes it value. Its more like running a business (on which i guess they already pay the taxes depending on jurisdiction), than holding a stock.
Ah so you're making an ideological comparison then. I don't disagree, but it still feels like semantics to me. You've probably got to meet some miners, at least in Southeast and Central Asia. As you say, it's a completely profit-driven choice for them. PoW mining is to them a lot more profitable -- merge-mining, switching between BCH and BTC after difficulty adjustments, and a willingness to hold against the market during a slowdown. If they made more money staking, I promise you they would switch in a heartbeat.
Sunday staker is just a made-up term, someone I suppose just switches on his computer on Sunday to see how his stake is doing;) The ultimate passive participant.
My initial comment was in response to what seemed to me was your comparison of investment of "hard earned money and time", which for me, is really the same thing no real difference. And you saying only rich guys for validators simply isn't true. It's cheaper to participate in a validator pool than it is a Bitcoin mining pool (with a minimum amount to expect some returns anyway). Not to mention far easier.
Note that I'm defending PoS at all. They shouldn't be exempt from tax on energy considerations. I just don't think the elitist distinction of PoW will hold true for most people.
