HI GATRA!
dpos has the drawbacks of pos while adding centralization.
I agree, and am/will-be trying to deter Ohad from going dpos over the course of our irc discussions. I'm personally not as concerned with the "drawbacks of POS" (particularly in this case) as I am with the "adding centralization" but I understand that both concerns are quite valid.
If you had PoW, I see many cool forms of arbitrage happening: being a provider and "outsourcing" to cheaper providers, using coins to pay a provider to mine coins for you, etc.
Possibly, but it is likely that the system will be self-balancing such that the arbitrage smiles are very rare and short lived. If a publisher could profitably mine with some providers' resource then rationally that provider would pull that resource from the network and instead apply it to the same mining process themselves for even greater profit - as they will not need to be paying some provider's fee on top. In fact, this briefly came up in discussion just yesterday, after someone out there (and "out there", heh) mistakenly inferred that people might rent resource to mine bitcoins - in something of a decentralized cloud mining style - which is ofc highly irrational.
The coin is degined for micropayments. I'm not sure (yet don't know) if it'll be economic or convenient or safe for other uses.
what does this mean? I can't think of any design decision that would be influenced by that, because... aren't micropayments handled off-chain?
You may want a fast block generation rate, but, what else?
No, the micropayments will be on-chain! Precisely the reason that this system uses zencoin instead of bitcoin or othercoin is because it will require a chain specifically oriented toward facilitating continual micro-payments for accounted resource.
This was one of the most difficult points for Ohad to get across to me, but since he has I now agree with him... the particular nature of this coin/network likely makes it of lesser utility for general purpose use. I'm sure it will still see general purpose use, especially for things like services/add-ons related to zennet itself but the architecture is being assembled explicitly
without this being a design goal, unlike most coins.
If I may, I just dont get why do you think that the coin will not have a general use Yes it is design specifically for a servicing a particular system' but if it is traded on the exchange markets, even P2P and there is a demand for the service which that coin mediate, my corner store may have a difficult time accepting it but maybe as payment in the university it will be accepted with much joy. and if all universities and student take it' the corner store will too. All services and related applications of accessibility will follow as well as hoarders.
Basically other than say it for the sake of laws and out of respect for paid lawyers',there is absolutely no reason to consider that not to be a good desirable means of exchange, store of value' and so very important' a unit of account that is related to a real basic commodity. (back to bean coins basically)