Please see this layman’s opinions in line.
- Can a services based economy work if the consumers of the services weren't producing some non-services based value?. Hypothetically, yes. But it would not be very wealthy. Examples are tourist oriented economies and cities like Las Vegas, New Orleans and Cancun. The reason is that they depend on discretionary income. When times are tough, service industry is hit hard.
- How can there be any economic value in middle-men?
Middleman can provide value. For example, a real estate agent ideally speeds up your house search when buying and how long your house is on the market when selling. In many cases, saving time equals money.
-Is speculation on artificially limited assets (housing) just a pyramid scheme ? No. Housing is in the USA is a low risk investment. Artificially limiting it, decreases risk and makes it even more valuable. This is the opposite of speculation. We speculate with crypto and baseball trading cards as they are risky with arbitrary random monetary value. Ponzi schemes are outright theft as they are intentionally scams.
- How is it NOT a zero sum game ?. Classical economists argued trade increased wealth as it allowed for specialization.
- *Is a Fiat currency just 'vibes based economics'. I don’t follow what you mean. But even if there is no currency and only barter. We would still be dependent on government provided laws and security. Otherwise we would live in a society that would raid and steal what we want. In other words, trade and property rights are only possible because of government. Not in spite of government.