Why inflation quietly kills most token economies

A lot of chains rely on token inflation to subsidize activity. On paper it looks healthy: growing transaction counts, more wallets, and more usage.

But economically it just transfers value from long-term holders to short-term users and farmers. Ethereum only really stabilized once fee revenue started to matter more than issuance.

I’m starting to think revenue-backed burns or hard supply caps are the only models that survive past the hype phase.

Are there crypto chains where inflation didn’t destroy long-term token value? Genuinely curious what people here think about it?