Thank-you for clearing this up for me. I made a post after you, but you addressed the issues that I discarded. I now know more then I did. Thanks!
If I remember, Isaac Arthur on YouTube[1] explained that space elevators would not need exotic material, they could be built out of steel or stone if you had enough of it - you'd end up with an inverted pyramid of steel chain so wide at the base that the forces were distributed enought that nowhere was stressed past the breaking point of steel.
Not very practical today, but if humans never do develop Ringworld Scrith, not ruled out entirely.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=isaac+arthur+sp...
Also, to remain in a stable orbit, wouldn't the spin force have to match the gravity of the star? So there would be no effective force left to provide gravity would there? (Similar to how people on the ISS are weightless despite still being within earth's gravity well).
Yes, absolutely. The main reason is that building orbitals is largely an engineering problem. You need a material no stronger than stainless steel. If graphite is feasible, it allows you to build bigger orbitals but it's not necessary.
Compare this to a lot of other proposed megastructures like space elevators, which would take a material to build that doesn't currently exist.
Also, to be clear, we're talking about Dyson _Swarms_. This is the original design idea that was called Dyson Spheres but that name is often not used because people mistakenly think we're talking about a rigid shell that encompasses a star. That is not and never was the intent. It's also impossible for many reasons.
A Dyson swarm is simply a collection of orbitals. The great thing about it is you can also build it incrementally.
Note that since these are spinning orbitals they have (spin) gravity and atmospheres.
Energy is absolutely a factor here.