What again is the utility in having a second bitcoin? We already have bitcoin, we dont need another one.
Honestly a very good question.. When I first heard about any alt-coins, (I think IOC was the first I was aware of?) I thought the same thing.. Then I suspected as so many do they only served to ease early adopter envy, and give others the chance to try mining on a small network like Bitcoin once was. Then of course I realized that the majority of people were simply trying to use them as pump and dumps to get rich quick.. I will even admit I mined a bunch of IXC with my only intention to exchange them for BTC and turn a profit.
Now, I see it a little differently. We have some good alt-coins around now with seemly good intentions of becoming useful, and not just an overnight fad. The reason I believe we have so many alts and that they will only continue to rise in popularity is that people simply like to have choices. It's part of our nature, we don't like being forced into a single option. Some people just like the fact they get to choose, some people enjoy the research that goes into making that choice. Bottom line, you could say that all currency's are just a product offered to satisfy a need (to perform transactions, store of value, etc..) and since there is a market for this type of product, many different products will show up and compete for your business.
Specifically as to why would there be two identical products in the same market? In this case it does heavily play to the favour of the early adopter seekers, hopefully not so much the pump and dumpers but it could be useful if Bitcoin ever runs into any scalability issues that take significant time to address. It's pretty much a cliché since it's been used so much, but Bytecoin could be the best silver to Bitcoin gold around.. Just as well designed, but lesser value just because it isn't as popular.
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