No, donations won't be enough. All the donation run efforts out there prove that it takes more than donations. Though many of them could be a lot wiser with how they use their donations.

World hunger still exists. World poverty. Wars. Human rights violations, etc.

The only way to fund things indefinitely is to find a way to get a steady stream of income.

But that doesn't mean that the proposed "tax" on the inflationary pool is necessarily the right way to do it. For one thing, funding needs will fluctuate. You'll have a situation similar to government workers, where they have to spend their budget or risk losing it for the next cycle.

There are many options. For example, we could build a voting system for proposed projects, where their funding is allocated based on whether or not they are approved by the Steem community.

I think that's why this proposed solution is perfect. We can work on developing the very system that will decide the best way to fund it.

I think that donations should be part of it, particularly donations towards specific development goals, because that's all voluntary. Sure, it probably won't support that much development, but it will give us somewhere to start, and we can start getting lists for people to see what is being developed, and what needs to be developed, so they can decide for themselves what to do.

If we did choose to go with a donation only system though, I think some people would surprise you. While it's hard to support things on donations alone, it's not impossible. There are many projects run on donations, including scientific research, and development. Open source is done for the most part through donations of time and resources.