Payment obfuscation (which is not inherent in the protocol, but how you use it).

International money transfers. I've personally met a few backpackers who use bitcoin ATMs in SE Asia in addition to the traditional banking system.

FWIW I suspect that these use cases are negligible compared to speculation.

How do the ATMs get around money laundering laws?

There are a ton of cryptocurrencies with practical real world use cases. Instant micro-payments is an interesting area where a more recent coin like IOTA could have application. Etherium smart contracts solve a lot of problems in the transfer of wealth. You can even get a credit card to spend your crypto if you want.

its considered actual (gov't approved) currency in Japan and South Korea... beyond that, I don't know.

It's hard to find real numbers on this but it certainly seems like most of the money is coming from speculators. Of course Bitcoin is also used in actual sales transactions sometimes and in black markets etc but it's mostly speculation.

Drugs and ransomware.

"Intranet has real promise, but Is anyone buying domains on the Internet for anything other than speculation?"

Absolutely no one ever said this.

.. God?

If you have to say that to defend your position, then clearly it wasn't conventional wisdom. Find me newspaper articles that are calling domain names useless and a bubble.