Now they instead gave the opportunity for other bitcoin holders to do good with the /dev/null'ed coins.
It's like giving up quota in a shared storage system for all others (in proportion to their quotas). And not like e.g. throwing away food or destructing buildings.
But the point is that you can do far more good by sending the money to some of the people who need it most, those in the lowest economic positions.
Rather than effectively sending it to the "average" Bitcoin user, which is definitely not in the lowest economic position -- and whatever the average Bitcoin holder spends on charity, it's only a small percent.
This is why Bill Gates spends his money on the Gates Foundation where it's designed to help those who need it most, rather than lighting all his money on fire so that the deflationary impact will help everyone in proportion to their savings.
By the standard that someone would need it more, vast majority of consumer spending is a lot more wasteful than just burning money.
I don't think it's clear whether the world would have been better or worse off if Gates would have just burned (or preferably /dev/null'ed) all his money.
> By the standard that someone would need it more, vast majority of consumer spending is a lot more wasteful than just burning money.
No, because burning money is simply deflation, and existing money will continue to follow the same patterns of consumer spending.
The idea that consumer spending is worse than burning money doesn't make any sense -- they're the same.
That's the whole point of why targeted giving to charity is better. That's why the Gates Foundation is a million times better than burning money. The Gates Foudation isn't going to "consumer spending" -- it's helping those most in need, like people who would die from malaria otherwise.
Burning money is same as having cash that you never spend. Never eating those extra calories or burning those extra gallons. Calories or gallons somebody else could use if needed, or that could be left to ground if not needed. Sounds almost the opposite to waste to me.
Gates (Foundation) allocates labor and material resources with its money. If it didn't, that labor and material resources would be allocated differently. E.g. central banks could print equivalent amount of money and it could be spent through governments to let's say malaria aid.
Money isn't a resource. Spending money dictates how resources are allocated. Assuming Gates Foundation is million times better than burning money assumes that Gates is million times better allocating resources than "non-Gates" would be.
I'm sure Gates isn't a million times better at this. I'm not sure at all he's even better than "non-Gates".
I am sure that no democratically unaccountable person should have that much power over how resources are allocated.