Well nobody can control what others say. I'd say that those actually involved in cryptocurrencies (other than those who bought) knew this all along. It's why there's been so many different attempts at fixing it!
But like I said above, a car taking magnitudes longer to cross the country compared to a plane doesn't make the car useless for all purposes. Having the option of being able to use a blockchain to transact without trust is a huge benefit to many. It might not be what everyone wants for all transactions, and it having downsides doesn't mean it's useless, but it still has immense value to some, for some of their transactions. Bitcoin was not designed to be faster than Visa, so saying it's useless because it can't keep up is kind of silly.
Blockchains and Bitcoin might be useless for you in their current forms, and that's more than fine! But they are still improving and changing, and they will almost definitely never truly be "finished". It's all about fixing the problems that people have.
When Bitcoin was first introduced, it was one of the first to allow trust less transactions without a central authority (again, a gross oversimplification). People found value in it, and as it gained some popularity problems were found, and people began working on solving them.
Those solutions are now beginning to have more widespread usage. Things like Lightning Network aren't "hopefully" in the future, they are now. The usage is still small, partly because the developers are intentionally taking things slow (becaus bugs can be very expensive here!), but the theory seems pretty sound. And many exchanges are already part of it and are planning to move to using it for everything (and IMO any good exchange should love the idea of LN! It takes all the risk out of holding people's money, it allows you to prove your trading volume is real, and it is as fast as you can move the bytes).
I have no doubts that more limitations will be found, and LN itself already makes some tradeoffs, so there will be more work after it's "done". And you can continue to not use it, and you can continue to criticize the ecosystem based on what charlatans and assholes said, but I believe in this tech and there are many people who will continue working on it and improving it for those who want it, for the use cases they want it for.
But like I said above, a car taking magnitudes longer to cross the country compared to a plane doesn't make the car useless for all purposes. Having the option of being able to use a blockchain to transact without trust is a huge benefit to many. It might not be what everyone wants for all transactions, and it having downsides doesn't mean it's useless, but it still has immense value to some, for some of their transactions. Bitcoin was not designed to be faster than Visa, so saying it's useless because it can't keep up is kind of silly.
Blockchains and Bitcoin might be useless for you in their current forms, and that's more than fine! But they are still improving and changing, and they will almost definitely never truly be "finished". It's all about fixing the problems that people have.
When Bitcoin was first introduced, it was one of the first to allow trust less transactions without a central authority (again, a gross oversimplification). People found value in it, and as it gained some popularity problems were found, and people began working on solving them.
Those solutions are now beginning to have more widespread usage. Things like Lightning Network aren't "hopefully" in the future, they are now. The usage is still small, partly because the developers are intentionally taking things slow (becaus bugs can be very expensive here!), but the theory seems pretty sound. And many exchanges are already part of it and are planning to move to using it for everything (and IMO any good exchange should love the idea of LN! It takes all the risk out of holding people's money, it allows you to prove your trading volume is real, and it is as fast as you can move the bytes).
I have no doubts that more limitations will be found, and LN itself already makes some tradeoffs, so there will be more work after it's "done". And you can continue to not use it, and you can continue to criticize the ecosystem based on what charlatans and assholes said, but I believe in this tech and there are many people who will continue working on it and improving it for those who want it, for the use cases they want it for.