[jjslocum3]

This entire comment seems to reprise the FTX/Larry David Super Bowl commercial. I'm sure there's a term-of-art for the tactic in debating circles (like "straw-man argument," or "appeal to authority"). I think of it as the "disingenuous comparison."

I can't begin to list all the ways in which comparing the auto industry of the 20th century to crypto of today breaks down. For starters, automobiles promised a massive demonstrable value-add to society from the get-go. Crypto, as others here have pointed out, is a solution looking for a problem.

So far, every application of crypto has actually destroyed value for the process it seeks to replace[1], by adding layers of busy-work on top of an already-working process. If it were of value as a self-contained, isolated ecosystem, then things might be different; but where it interfaces with the existing economic infrastructure within which it needs to operate (and which it seeks to replace), any economic efficiencies bleed out rapidly.

[1] Edit: And I'm not even considering the scams