If people keep it, then how can it inflate? Intuitively, that'd mean that its value is increasing, not decreasing. You won't accumulate something with no value.

Bots are indeed an issue, I'm saying that constantly, so I agree on that, as well as I agree on whales but I really don't know what to do about either. I still keep up my opinion that Steem holds more value than Bitcoin, because it has some valuable objects associated to its amounts.