if miners aren't desperately competing to pay off their capital expenditure, then they abuse their market position much more quickly, finding another way to assume control over the production on the network, which discourages anyone else from competing
so of all the major working consensus models it has either boiled down to either capital for miners or capital for coins that limit this abuse/control, spurring enough confidence in the network to bring on other participants (whether you or any one person personally agrees with it)
keep searching for improvements and alternatives though
besides, the people who benefit the most from crypro (central and south America, Africa, etc) dont care about your investments, they only care it works.
"You had plenty of time to be an early adopter, enjoy being poor" isn't exactly the sort of governance of monetary policy that fills me with confidence.
Still doing research™
This is literally how every asset works. Early investors earn huge appreciation. Those speculative profits drive innovation. It's why we have a $500 billion venture capital industry that exists for the sole purpose of getting resources into the hands of innovators so they can grow new products and businesses.
turns out that speculation drives innovation, which really translates into any interest at all
without the competitive pressure, people put their time and resources on other things
with high supply creation experiments in the crypto space, the demand never catches up as nobody wants to earn the currency or buy the currency