Actually that's not the case.  We are planning on doing a burn of much of the unswapped coins.  It is intended that some of the premine will go towards development costs and building out future functionality, that's correct. We have been quite open about that.

For about 2 years there was no work of any kind done on Tips. The wallets were unpatched and riddled with security holes. The price had at one point been in the top 50 cryptos, many years ago. After being abandoned it is well known what the price became.  There is currently a team of six that have worked almost full time for one year on Tips, rebuilding the coin, growing the community, doing marketing, outreach hosting and more.  All of this work has helped Fedora move a long way ahead from where it was one year ago.  It is, however, unfeasible to assume that this kind of work can continue. No work of any kind was being done on Tips until the community project volunteered to do so.

As for a reduction in supply - the quantity of coins is immaterial when it is the value that is the key.  The reduction is being done for one specific reason - to get the value to above a Satoshi, so that Tips can once again trade against BTC.  Please check out the website to learn more, and the more detailed roadmap on Trello

www.tipsco.in
https://trello.com/b/MWdyyCfA/fedora-coin-roadmap

Remember that the swap is entirely VOLUNTARY. If you don't wish to move your Tips to the new tech with the new features like privacy, faster times, new wallets, mobile/web, etc then you can stay on the original chain and keep using the legacy Tips wallets that we have built for the community.  We also ensured that several exchanges (Nova & Altilly) will keep trading the original Tips chain.

Nobody is being forced to do anything, please remember that.

Cheers,
Robots.