It could be said that speculation and investors drive adoption and increased awareness and attention. They may be in it for a quick buck, but by developing the tools and infrastructure, they open up the gates for the other 6 billion to fully take advantage of the disruptive technology. One can look at the role that information technology run by private companies played in coordinating the Arab Spring even if they were not directly involved.
The same could be said for any other world-changing technology. Railroads, power grids, phone and data networks, and other technologies have helped people all over the world improve their lives.
For example, the One Laptop Per Child project gave children in the third world access to the world's information in areas where access to a proper education could be severely limited, but you needed investors to get computing and information technology to the point where a project like that is even possible.
So ideally, you would have people pushing the technology forward, and the technology will keep growing and become the disruptive force that it needs to be. Of course, the "quick buck" investors might need to keep being reminded that what they are working on has the potential to benefit a large part of the world's population in really profound ways.
I think, in a way, that's what Andreas Antonopoulos is doing. Especially in his "Bitcoin Neutrality" presentations, he makes it clear that it does not matter what
you want Bitcoin to be. This seems aimed at the profit mongers. My favorite thing he said was something like, if someone tells you Bitcoin needs to be fixed with some change to it tell them fuck off Bitcoin works just fine.
