First: the number of coins mined per 10 minutes are more or less fixed. It doesn't matter how many miners are hashing: currently there will only be 25 coins each 10 minutes. And each 4 years this will half (so in 2012, you got 50 coins, in 2016 the miners will only get 12.5 coins). This is build into the protocol (crypto currencies have a deflation built in). To incentivize miners to keep mining, it is essential that it becomes a mainstream currency (not a hoarded commodity) with a huge number of transactions per second. Although Bitcoin transactions are nearly free, if there are hundreds per second, it will count up for miners to be profitable. But here I have some doubts as well (to be frank: I think they will change the protocol and higher fees if the incentives aren't meting Miners demands). And yes: Miners are essential for maintain security of the transaction process. The more the better and the more decentralized the safer.
There may be miners that drop off if there arent any more coins to mine (this wont happen till 2140). However the miners that stay on will make money via transaction fees. Its a genius system because it rewards miners with fees for verifying even after all coins have been mined. currently the fee is something like 0.001 btc. So the system is self sustaining. The source code will change to allow more fees or less fees in order to keep the systen stable.
Just a quick calculation: if Miners expect to get 25 coins per 10 minutes in the year 2140. Then they need 42 transactions per second ( 25 / (0.001 x 600secs) = 42). Tough, it will be just after a 4 year jump: In 2016 miners get 12.5 coins (instead of 25 now). Then they already need a mature network of 20 transactions per second (to get the same amount of 25). It looks quite a task for the next 2 years time if we are currently on only 1 per second, but on the other hand 5x grow per year is much less than we saw in the past 5 years, so it might be reachable: http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions
You are an idiot. His point was exactly like that, the second comer took over the first guy, just like the myspace<<<<facebook race....
No I wasn't . I'm arguing the opposite of what you think Pekelo was not thinking about arguing. Hey he knows what I said, right pek?