"Ethereum also recognizes that a system intended to serve as a distributed, consensus-based application platform for global economic and social systems, must strongly emphasize inclusiveness. One of the many ways we intend to foster inclusiveness is by maintaining an issuance system which possesses some churn.  New participants in the system will be able to purchase new ETH or mine for new ETH whether they are living in the year 2015 or 2115. We believe we have a achieved a good balance between the two goals of fostering inclusiveness and maintaining a stable store of value. And the constant issuance, especially in the early years, will likely make using ETH to build businesses in the Ethereum economy more lucrative than hoarding speculatively."

- https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/04/10/the-issuance-model-in-ethereum/

But 90 million ETHER in total(60% crowdsale participants 40% miners until the switch the POS. In 18 months. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Each ether is divisible down to millionths just like bitcoins but in Ethereum they are called 'wei'.

I don't expect to see Bitcoin-like bubbles in ether. But a steady increase up to >$10 by the alpha release. And then $30-50 hopefully during my lifetime.

I might put my ether towards a distributed Wei faucet and just make money from ads

Yes.
60 million ETH at launch.
inflation mining: 7200 blocks per day x 5 Ether-per-block. = 36,000 ETH/day. (or 13.1 million new Ether mined per year, fixed supply).
There is no hard cap.

Wrong 72M Ether premined.

There was an additional 17% premine by the devs. WTF

https://www.etherchain.org/tx/0x9c81f44c29ff0226f835cd0a8a2f2a7eca6db52a711f8211b566fd15d3e0e8d4

Comparing Bitcoin to Ethereum is like comparing Elvis Presley and New Kids on the Block. Elivis is always King of Rock and Roll. New Kids on the Block where replaced within some time.

It doesn't matter investors ROI were huge enough and everyone doesn't care about it anymore. Win-win situation for Vitalik and his team.

The blocktime was originally 10sec, that's where the 5m eth goes 

if the elites wanted to counter bitcoin do you honestly think they'd come up with something as crazily convoluted as ethereum? nope. it would look like a pokemon game or something.

as for a hard cap, i don't think it makes any sense for something that wants to be a currency. great as a better gold, terrible for day to day use. in this case monero has it right. i can't keep up with ethereum's plans.

Actually, this "limited supply" of bitcoin was one of its biggest mistakes if ever bitcoin intended to become a currency (which it isn't going to be).  But it was a brilliant marketing gimmick.

First of all, "limited supply ever" is a silly notion, because nobody cares what will happen when the Sun will swallow the earth 1 billion years from now.  So we can say that whatever we do, all of our plans are going to be limited to at most 1 billion years.
Well, within 1 billion years, a coin with tail emission such as ethereum will also have a "finite supply".

The belief that it matters whether after 1 billion years, there will still be coins emitted or not, is ridiculous, I hope you agree.  Now, consider a coin that emits a constant block reward for "the first billion years, and then stops emitting rewards".  Strictly speaking, that is a coin with limited supply, like bitcoin.  Only bitcoin does it over 140 years, and this coin, over 1 billion years, but in principle, both are coins with limited supply.

Now, consider another coin, that has the same emission as the first one, but doesn't stop after 1 billion years.  This is an "evil coin with unlimited supply" because it will emit still coins at 3 billion years, while the first one, and bitcoin, both stopped.

There's honestly no difference between both: their emission schemes are identical for the first billion years, and after that, none will exist.

Bitcoin has been emitting new coins ever since it got in existence, and most probably, bitcoin will disappear before 140 years.  So bitcoin will also be a coin with "unlimited supply during its life time".

But the fundamental reasons why this decreasing supply is problematic are the following:
1) "unlimited seigniorage".   The early adopters got their masses of coins, which were easily produced, for very low costs, and will, as time goes by, be able to spend them to obtain more and more value.  Being able to make money at a much lower cost than it represents afterwards, is exactly what seigniorage is about.  So these early adopters are the equivalent of central bankers printing money almost for free, and being able to buy a lot of stuff with it.  In fact, the emission curve of most coins, like bitcoin, is inverse to what it should be.  Ideally, the emission curve should follow adoption: in the beginning, almost no coins, and then, as adoption increases, emitting more and more coins, so that a price stability follows, and all participants have similar seigniorage (which they burn with PoW).

2) deflationary spiral and hoarding.   An asset that is rare and of decreasing supply, takes on value in many cases.  As such, one has no reasons to spend these coins, but rather to hoard (hodl) them.  But then, they are not used as a currency.  You'd be crazy to pay someone with a coin today against value X, if you know that that coin will be worth 2X tomorrow.  You keep your coin, and you pay the guy with some less valuable asset like fiat.   So nobody is really interested in using bitcoin as a currency, but wants to buy it mainly to hodl and "invest".

as a store of value it's more than perfect. as long as enough people want in the only way is up.