[melolife]

I would argue that under both proof of stake and mining your income is always directly proportional to the amount invested, either in equipment or stake.

The main difference is the minimum barrier to entry, however under PoS you have access to various pooling services, which simulate consumer scale mining (complete with the associated inefficiency).

[ryebit]

Except under mining, increased investment opens up access to better equipment like ASICs, access to cheaper energy agreements, etc. But no amount of $ unlocks the ability to validate faster (per unit staked).

[PurpleFoxy]

And then everyone gets their hands on this tech so the mining difficultly goes up and you are back to square one.

[ryebit]

History of stuff like Antminers has been stages of private access, high end market, then low end ...

But while products are moving down those stages, more wattage-efficient ones are entering at top.

I think you're right that ROI curve will get closer to linear (utility costs aside), but I don't think it's going to be a very fast progression.

[ryebit]

To clarify: I don't think proof of stake is perfect.

I think the original pie in the sky dream, as hinted at in the Bitcoin white paper, was for decentralization through anyone (all the way to students in their dorms) being able to participate in consensus.

I don't think proof of stake gets things all the way there, but I think it does get closer to a linear ROI curve, compared to how proof of work is right now.