> No-one in their day-to-day usage of dollars (or gold) directly cares how many currency units exist.
This is an artefact of economic policy and education that has brainwashed us into believing in the time value of money, that is "money now is worth more than the same amount of money in the future." This directly implies a preference for debt and consumption over saving. But the fact is that the purchasing power of a currency is a function of its supply relative to the productivity of the workers in the economy, not the discretionary consumption of individuals in the economy. That is, a currency is only useful to the extent that it allows us to value productivity accurately.
Productivity increases over time, therefore goods and services should become cheaper relative to dollars, that is, a constant amount of money I hold should be worth more — able to buy me more stuff — in the future than it is now.
If you don't care how many actual dollars exist, then fundamentally, you and all the other market actors have no way of discovering the true price of anything. It's all just guesswork, with someone else (the government) putting a thumb on the scale to increase asset prices. The price of what you just bought is whatever you were convinced to pay for it with varying relation to its actual value.
Consider: we don't actually know the value of houses. A couple goes to buy a house and immediately takes out a mortgage to pay >40% of the quoted price. So house owners are incentivised to quote higher prices because of mortgage availability. Contractors and developers similarly inflate prices of their services. Similarly with materials suppliers and landholders. The entire market is distorted because we don't know and don't care and are encouraged not to care how many dollars there are in existence relative to the productivity of humans.
It's not entirely an evil conspiracy in which most of us participate but it is a terrible accident humanity has found itself in.
So, think from first principles and ask yourself: what is the true value of the thing I just bought. It's a helpful exercise in day to day life.