Those stats determine where most of the resources have been focused on. Each coins have their own agenda, goal, and different group of community backing it.
i think its a bit different b/c ethereum is supposedly useful as the 'fuel that allows apps to utilize the concept of a blockchain' in apps.
i suppose the idea is that it 'burns' ethereum to run an app on top of it, so I can see a scenario where ethereum becomes too expensive and businesses that use decide to move to a different fork that is less expensive.
I guess the oil analogy works then -- it gets too expensive and alternatives are found. However, its just a matter of forking the codebase and starting another one...kind of like stellar did with ripple.
Many clones were made of bitcoin, but it has a large first mover advantage which keeps it on top. coinmarketcap.com has some interesting stats on the "altcoins"
Those stats determine where most of the resources have been focused on. Each coins have their own agenda, goal, and different group of community backing it.