for the past 3 years that ethereum existed the only usage that it had was smart contracts (something that bitcoin and at least 50 other altcoins also do and some of them do it a lot better). in these 3 years there has been thousands of smart contracts created each more useless than the last. people only buy ETH for speculation or to buy ICOs and gamble.
people also buy bitcoin for speculation but they also buy it because it is a decentralized money and also a secure store of value.
that is usability and adoption for you.
as for security, with the speed that ETH blockchain is growing the nodes will centralize to only a handful of nodes that can handle 1, 2, 10 TB and growing fast. and that opens ups easy attack surfaces.
there has been a lot of hacks of the main client that the developing team releases and millions have been lost multiple times. latest of them have been the multisignature feature being buggy and $110 million was lost!
as for smart contracts (the only usage of ETH) it is easily exploitable. DAO is the biggest example which was not fixed but instead "rolled back" which also proved that
ETH is not Immutable. the worst part is issues similar to DAO happened multiple times after that but there was no "roll back" for them and they were swept under the rug because the foundation never invested in those but they have invested in DAO! immutability may not mean anything to you but it is one of the fundamentals of blockchain technology and without it this technology means nothing.
that's security for you.
as for innovation and technology, all of the ideas that Vitalik used have been either proposed or discussed by bitcoin developers and put down because of the problems they imposed. there is nothing new about ethereum, there is just an interesting idea to allow such a platform for smart contracts, i admit that but with side chains on bitcoin this idea will exist for bitcoin in a much better, efficient and cheaper way!
Many people have a very common thought habit of assuming that a first-mover will forever be the #1, regardless of every other influencing factors.
not it had never have anything to do with being "first mover". and bitcoin is not at all the first mover. there have been other projects (altcoins if you will) before bitcoin was even created. they do not exist today but bitcoin does.
I have the opinion that cryptocurrency tech like Bitcoin and Blockchain were first sold as something idealistic, i.e. decentralized, immutable, financial freedom/independence as in being your own banker, etc, in order to entice adoption, but as adoption increases, such tech will slowly morph into something totally opposite of what it was originally sold for, i.e. it will not be decentralized, it will not give you freedom/independence, etc.
So ultimately what will become the major global-scale mainstream cryptocurrency will depend entirely on who is behind the foundation.
Is it people like me and you?
Or is it people like TPTB?
Yeah, I agree Vitalik hardforked ETH was not to save the DAO victims, but because their own investment was at stake.
But then this world is very ugly.
Sometimes we cannot make decision based on what is most perfect, or what is best, but on whose power is behind such tech.
Bitcoin's persistent existence since 2009 was
never a coincidence nor an accident.
It was not thanks to people like Vitalik, or Andreas, or Roger Ver, or Gavin, or etc Mr. Mister that promoted it regularly, that is not the human nature.
Human nature is such that if a 3rd-party tech is great, most likely you will copy its code, modify it, and promote it as your own brand, never the brand of a 3rd-party, and that's exactly what many groups and companies are doing today, i.e. developing their own blockchain.
However, if there is a group of techies, no matter how independent they appear to be, promoting a 3rd-party tech, something is amiss.
Have you ever asked yourself why "Satoshi" chose to be anonymous while people like Vitalik and Charlie Lee are walking free?
There is another reason why Bitcoin was sold as some tech developed by some anonymous guy.
No, nothing whatsoever to do with the risk of getting caught and prosecuted by the government, that's the garbage thought process sold to you.
If Bitcoin was started by average people like you and me, it would have died within 1 year after starting.
If you still sincerely believe that Bitcoin was created by a single Japanese guy to save the world and destroy governments and bankers, then you are still dreaming in the matrix.
Most likely what they sold to you is the exact opposite of what is real.
But of course this will slowly evolve over time.
What was once deregulated will be regulated.
What was once private will be non-private.
What was once decentralized will be centralized.
Before you know it, the world will turn out to be just the same.
People do not buy something just because this something is decentralized or a store of value.
Decentralized and store of value are just excuses to justify buying it, so you don't go around telling your friends you buy Bitcoin because of the money as if you are a greedy materialistic bastard, but instead you can strike up a smart conversation that it is because of decentralization and a store of value.
Nothing but lies that people like you keeping telling themselves everyday.
