People didn't switch because of stability problems with gold standard. That's just propaganda and fiat apologetics. As a matter of fact gold standard seen fastest and most stable growth in the history of human kind. Gold is hard to transport, secure and divide so ledgers were used instead which allowed government to just end goal standards to fund WW1 efforts, which also shows the magnitude of destruction and statist largese this enabled.

I recommend Broken Money for history and analysis how it came to be that things are how they are.