It's still a solution in search of a problem. In a marketplace, there are two fundamental fears to be addressed: the seller's fear that the customer will not pay the money for the goods, and the customer's fear that the seller will not actually provide the goods. The classic solution to this problem is escrow, where the seller and the customer both agree on a trusted third party who will hold the customer's money until the seller delivers the goods.

In modern times, credit cards and the like provide an adequate solution the problem (there's definitely strong dislike over things like fees, though). Early digital currencies failed because they weren't trustworthy as third parties, or they failed to gain a wide enough userbase to keep fees low. But it's not like they all failed--PayPal is with us today. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies suffer as a payment method in that they don't solve the customer's problem, particularly in cases like ransomware where there is strong reason to doubt the seller's ability to deliver.