Gold has limited use in the world and its often more expensive then alternatives. I think its used anyway because it retains its practical non rusting properties in a pinch or in a ton of the stuff, its equally divisible; so there is always a wealthy buyer somewhere
makes absolutely no sense in the buying/selling of goods unless we go back to walking around with a gold dust pouch on our sides....."that soda will be 1/2 a pinch of yer gold dust please......actually wait a minute I have larger fingers than you....let me see your pouch I'll handle the pinching"
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its not practical in small amounts or really as accurate and a non pure gold coin can be faked more easily. So the benefits of gold break down for tiny transactions, I agree which is where bitcoin could be most useful. Its cheaper to use, far more accurate and irrefutable in its record of the transaction.
Gold can be digital as can dollars but from what Ive seen the fees to transmit gold value exceed BTC so BTC wins for pinch of salt type buys (and maybe much more) and hopefully this is why both will succeed alongside each other not really in competition imo [ in theory you can buy via a credit card scheme backed 100% by gold so you could really buy a few candy bars and charge it alongside your monthly shopping bills, however at least 10k of gold on deposit would be minimum I think + fees etc].
In 1971 people were effectively buying soda with a gold proxy which was the dollar but they had value hijacked and inflation of 1970's occurred thereafter. The point of failure there was a centralised system not the gold itself to be fair