I think Satoshi or one of the early workers/developers on BTC said when coins are lost it's like a small donation to everyone who holds that crypto.

I'll have to go back and look at my introduce me post as well as I'm assuming most accounts aren't even active anymore. I have some friends that hold like 10 - 20 Steem that I doubt will ever be on the platform again so it would be interesting to see how much Steem is owned by accounts who've done nothing on the blockchain for more than a year.