> a car where the gas mileage decreased proportionally to how far you’ve driven since the car was made.

Torturing metaphors: it's more useful to say that the gas/mile (kw per block) fuels all 21 million cars simultaneously, not just one car, and ensures that all the roads they've travelled remain useable, and that anyone in the world can use a car at any time and verify the journey it made and the cargo it carried. Further, each car can carry an arbitrary amount of cargo (the value of the transaction).

That wouldn’t be correct, because it wouldn’t be possible for everyone in the world to rely on bitcoin.

And in any case, there are other ways to build a global system for transferring money that is many orders of magnitude more efficient, so there is still no reason for society to support the cost of bitcoin, because it’s a terrible alternative.

And no, people don’t want or need a completely decentralized, trustless etc payment system. It’s a non-goal.

> And in any case, there are other ways to build a global system for transferring money that is many orders of magnitude more efficient, so there is still no reason for society to support the cost of bitcoin, because it’s a terrible alternative.

Good. Build one. That's a huge arbitrage opportunity. The market will decide. Meanwhile we'll continue building systems on top of Bitcoin[2]. Game on. See you in 50 years.

> And no, people don’t want or need a completely decentralized, trustless etc payment system. It’s a non-goal

Now you're being hopelessly naive to the point of being helpless and ineffective in the real world. Travel the world a bit. Learn what real humans need. Learn history.[0] Learn how many have been ruined by a legacy financial system built on manipulable currencies and fiat.[3]

At the very least, open your mind[1] and just learn instead of pounding your chest to confirm your narrow priors. The goal is to get smarter not less smart.

[0]: https://breedlove22.medium.com/our-most-brilliant-idea-aced3...

[1]: https://breedlove22.medium.com/bitcoin-is-hope-bedce21b3648

[2]: https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/

[3]: https://breedlove22.medium.com/masters-and-slaves-of-money-2...

Just like a marxist you keep coming back to “you need to learn more”.

I already know a fair bit, that is not the issue here. And I’ve lived long term in places as diverse as Japan, Russia, China, the Middle East and Scandinavia, so I don’t lack experience of the world. That’s why I know that normal people don’t care about trustless or decentralized money.

As to bitcoin alternatives, there are plenty, both with crypto and without. Many other cryptos are technically far superior to bitcoin, but go almost unused because that’s not the point.