Mining BTC is such a joke now, what a massive waste of electricity from these oh so efficient ASICS.
That is a pretty narrow perspective. There is a point to having an extremely strong network.
What about banks, and the electricity they use, people they hire, gold and securities they store and all the $$$ they spend?
What about cars idling at traffic lights, dirty emissions, etc. It is all around you and BTC, relatively speaking, is NOTHING.
Since BTC is an "online" entity, we can easily lose sight of the fact of the value in mining. But it essentially secures the network.
Perhaps we create another algorithm that is more "productive" but that brings up other problems...
IAS