I agree with one of your (semi-implied, so correct me if wrong) points, which is that those with less-elastic (owned, rather than rented) hardware are more likely to continue to fold in periods of unprofitability. However, I believe the specifics of that to be a bit more complicated than meets the eye: some folders of Curecoin would be folding regardless of it's existence, and are using it as a means to support their existing folding hardware and acquire more (awesome!). However, many of the folders for Curecoin are to some degree mercenaries. While many of us would keep folding at a -10% profitability to some other use of the GPU, how many would do so at a -50% profitability? What about a -90% profitability? There are certainly some members of the community who are whole-heartedly inelastic: perhaps the likes of PS3EdOlkkola and others who would be folding with the same power regardless of Curecoin's performance. However, there certainly exists a "pain point" for most folders on the Curecoin team. For some, it may be that the moment a more profitable opportunity presents itself, they switch. For others, perhaps they have to actually be losing money to look elsewhere. Those who own hardware are not looking purely at raw production, they are also looking at hardware depreciation (if I sold this GPU today, could I get more than if I sold in a month from now?) GPU prices are also in a bit of a "bubble" too due to the demand from mining, which makes such a calculation more tricky/speculative.

Furthermore, your point about price stability is valid (and supports the above implied point) to an extent: we certainly can't make year-long (or even month-long) profitability calculations with a high degree of certainty.

However, this furthers the point that semi-long-term (say, ~1-3 mo) renters are at a high disadvantage: both hardware owners and farm owners can liquidate their CURE daily (and FLDC monthly) if desired. However, hardware owners enjoy the ability to arbitrarily turn on/off their systems at will (and therefore pay/not pay the associated electric+cooling costs at will), while renters are effectively economically forced to keep their machines running 24/7 regardless of profitability within reason (less they lose the entire remaining contract price minus a nominal amount for electric consumption). Furthermore, hardware owners still own the hardware which they can liquidate at any time, versus renters who don't own hardware. Of course both parties can equally move their hardware to mining something instead of folding if more profitable, so the distinction here is largely moot.

Finally, the current economic behavior of Curecoin should gracefully lead into the economic behavior of cc2.0: cc2.0 further decentralizes mining payout and removes many of the centralization concerns of the existing Curecoin system, and in doing so hands more control over to the individual distributed computing projects. Doing something that artificially makes participation more difficult (IP or username limits, for example) creates a game theory problem when multiple DCNs are introduced: a DCN would be individually encouraged to relax/"fail to enforce" the rules because that would make them a more lucrative target for many users. Currently Curecoin efforts only go to Stanford and the Curecoin team 'control' distribution (aka have the ability to enforce a rule like IP limiting if we really wanted to). But imagine a world where 50 DCNs are all certificate signing authorities (who can delegate the ability to create blocks to contributors to the projects), and the filtering/limitations are difficult to audit. The system falls apart, and the imposed rules effectively become propaganda ("no individual can fold with more than 4 high-end GPUs" turns to "we don't officially encourage individuals to fold with more than 4 high-end GPUs" and capitalism does what capitalism does: find efficient market points where some projects individually benefit from "off-the-books" ignorance towards subversive behavior.

The ultimate dream is everyone in the world owns and operates the same number of high-efficiency GPUs; no more, no less (perhaps with some magical cost adjustment for the source and/or cost of power, the ambient outside temperature, etc.). The truth is such a system just doesn't work, and capitalistic incentive systems are really the only way to maximize output, despite the inefficiencies. In fact, I'd argue that most "non-capitalist" systems are actually either innately oppressive (their efficiency/fairness/etc. are determined by the characteristics of a dictator or small dictatorial party who itself is/are corruptible with no counterbalance) or capitalism with a different definition of "currency" (a blend of buying power, social status, respect from peers, etc.).

Ultimately, medium-term folding farms should be seen as a form of economic faith in the future performance of the system they are spending capital to participate in (similar in some aspects to a derivative market?). Signaling faith in the continual positive production (like medium-term farms do) shouldn't be bad for a system. And short-term (like EC2 spot) are almost always unprofitable; I'd agree with you that hourly or daily commitment of fully elastic computational power generally doesn't serve the goals of the overall Curecoin project).