I'm going to piggyback on benyben's question here.

I understand that by doing this, we secure the network, however, here's my question: WHY are we being "paid"? Is it because we are securing this network? To me, payment comes from doing work, but since we're not actually using Bitcoin's power to do computations or solve complex algorithms, it seems odd that we're being awarded to, in my view, do nothing.

The only reason I could think of is using it as an incentive to help push it into the online community.

Am I missing something here?