Was it you offering 0% fee staking? How is that going? Was there much uptake?
Yes and there has been no uptake. The only coins I'm staking at the moment are my own. A few people have said they are interested in using my service in the future. Okay, whatever.
People who are actively using the coin in a transactional manner (to the extent such a rumored mythical creature actually exists) also do not stake because the network rules don't allow it.
The rules don't allow an output to stake if it has been involved in a transaction in the last 4 hours. If you keep your outputs split up then you can transact in CLAM without damaging your staking return much at all.
Also, after you successfully stake you can't move the coins (including the original ones, not just the reward) until it matures. As you say you can reduce the burden by splitting up coins, but it it still exists, and serves to enrich those who don't actively transact at the expense of those who do (of course this is a slow gradual process over time).
That isn't by itself a bad thing but if the staking reward is too high this serves as a disincentive to use and an incentive to hoard. How that trades off against the incentive to stake and security of the network I don't know (though as long as the stake is all in one place the latter is a waste/sham anyway).
In this way staking is NOT the same as the inflation we see in USD, BTC, or DOGE, since the newly created coins are shared out to existing holders in proportion to their holdings.
It does bear a lot of resemblance to USD. Some are able to invest and keep up with inflation but others are not. The groups largely mirror the ones described above.
Investment is a gamble that can be done in any currency.
It isn't a gamble if you are a bank and get paid to keep excess reserves at the Fed. That is literally zero risk denominated in USD. There are other effectively zero risk investments that pay interest that is often similar or even higher than the inflation rate, but those often aren't available to smaller investors or to those using actual cash (i.e. for active transactional purposes).
Staking isn't. I don't see how USD inflation (diluting the buying power of all but the closest to the source of money creation) resembles CLAM staking (rewarding all stakers proportionally).
It isn't exactly the same of course. I said there is resemblance, not an identity.
and it seems to push owners to hoard CLAMS and hold them indefinitely.
but it shouldn't. Staking is "running to stay still".
It likely does, for exactly the reason you state: Staying still is better than
falling behind.
The choice is between "running to stay still" or "not holding CLAMs to stay still" seems about equal. By selling all your CLAMs you're not "falling behind" (unless whatever you sold them for isn't doing well).
The question is staking or not staking (the latter because your holdings are too small to bother or because you actively use them to transact), not between staking and selling. But if you want to consider selling, then alternately and equivalently call that buying something else i.e. a form of investing that will be feasible for smaller holders or those actively transacting because costs (both direct and indirect costs such as time and inconvenience) will be too high. So again this serves to transfer wealth to larger static static holdings (i.e. hoarding).
with the lucky first staker of each day having a mini "lottery win"...
I would think that the history here of all places would discourage trying to create a fair lottery with a blockchain (especially one without PoW). It is harder than it looks.