Maybe I am being too narrow minded to think that way, but compounding interest is a powerful thing and if BTC is guaranteed to go up every year by even as little as 10-15% (and those are conservative numbers based on the supply issue and I would think that the guaranteed price increase would be greater than 15% annually). BTC would change the whole dynamics of the world and incentives for labor......
Once bitcoin matures the deflation rate should match the growth rate of the economy, around 3-4%. If people stop working the economy will slow and the deflation rate will be less. It's a self limiting problem.
sorry Schizoid, but your comment seems like too much pie in the sky for me to relate... Surely, both you and I are speculating a bit about the future and maybe it is so far into the future that it does NOT matter too much.. but YOU know that the BTC protocol already sets the parameters for the expansion of the BTC supply up until 21 million until 2140... so until 2140, the amount of expansion will be decreasing... so now it is about 12% then in 2017, it will be 6% then in 2021 it will be 3% then in 2025 it will be 1.5%, then in 2029 it will be .75%... all the way reducing in half every four years until we get to 2140.... Even by the time we are in 2029, the rate is less than 1%.
I was actually assuming an expansion rate of 0%. If the BTC supply is fixed, its value will be determined by the size of the economy. If the economy grows (more goods and services per BTC), BTC will rise. If the economy shrinks (fewer goods and services per BTC), BTC will fall.
The rapid rise we've seen so far has been due to the rapid growth of the bitcoin economy, but that won't go on forever.