Cutting out middlemen out of a transaction is a very useful feature of cryptocurrencies which potentially broadly benefits society.

For example (in certain parts of Europe, and probably elsewhere too) merchants have to pay a fairly high fixed cost to have credit card terminals in their place of business, and also pay a cut of each transactions to Visa or Mastercard. This is a considerable cost to small business, which have to pass this along to consumers. Now of course most consumers don't use bitcoin or other altcoins to pay for stuff today, however the fact that there's even the possibility of eliminating these types of middlemen is very exciting, and unthinkable even a few short years ago.

Not to mention the very exciting possiblities offered by blockchains and smart contracts, even if the original projects that spawned them fail completely (bitcoin and ethereum).