Not sure. You don't have to be Christopher Nolan for it to be interesting.

You can use it as a kind of dashcam to document what you are doing, watch it after the fact to look at what you can improve, what went wrong, etc. and then discard the footage and start again.

Or if it was somehow streamable it would surely find an audience. Even marbles running down hills get crazy view counts on Youtube!

Yep, the 'you wouldn't believe what just happened' stories you trade with your skiing/boarding/biking/skating friends are way more interesting with 'check out this footage' at the end.

Agreed, action cams are just overhead you don’t need when doing adventure / action spots. Fun once or twice then the novelty wears off and you just want to focus on the sport.

I’ve also lost plenty of footage using my GoPro, cliff jumps in exotic locations etc, get home and and corrupt video files etc. Turned me off it

I had the same experience with drones, which are another popular use for GoPro cameras. It was fun for a few weeks and then stuff breaks, doesn't work right, etc. I'm glad I never spent a ton of money on an expensive drone or camera.

Self-fulfilling experience? Buy cheap stuff; it breaks or doesn't work right; regret the experience and write it off?

Even if you need a gopro, your usage will be probably limited once the hype is passed. You will probably never buy a new go pro either because the first one works fine or because of its limited usage. The next buy may probably be a drone that follows you with a camera.

For me, cutting taken videos to a max. 2 min excerpt showing highlights only got way too time intensive. Uncut videos barely became touched twice.