It is a net leak of value, both the fees paid to the Witnesses, the management of the Steem Dollar futures contract, and the Steem Power common stock (its interest is also derived out of inflation, and hedges against this the more you hold) and the rewards distribution. In effect everyone who holds Steem in any form, is paying some amount for the witnesses and the blog rewards, through a slow but definite dilution of the value of each Steem's value.
I think it's ironic that an anarco-capitalist developer and a finance guy who is inspired by Austrian economics wound up using a hidden inflation tax instead of transaction fees to fund their blockchain design... and they probably did it on the way to some "End the Fed" rallies. ; -)
It's not the same, because STEEM uses a controlled and predictable inflation, but it's still amusing.
I think it's very clever actually, and it immediately started to get me thinking about automated payment allocation systems to run insurance payment systems too. Just like that pesky shit they do with your pay before you get it. Voluntary of course, but pretty much essential, and pro-rata - depending on how careful and/or lucky you are.