Bitcoin uses about 100x more energy than ethereum, has 5x less throughput, and doesn't natively support smart contracts. There's definitely also room for ethereum.
There is no word for swapping $5 of crypto on Uniswap currently costing ~$2 in gas fees (and this is 'low') and taking several minutes other than "dumb".
There are other cryptos which have most or all of the advantages of Ethereum with minimal downsides. I don't want to come across as shilling any particular bag, so I'll be vague and say there are chains with reasonable amounts of activity where transactions take seconds and fees are $0.00x or $0.000x. This actually is disruptive and interesting compared to fees for Stripe/Braintree or even Mastercard/Visa.
The reality is that if Ethereum released today with its capabilities, it would not see widespread adoption. Its position today is purely because it's the incumbent smart contract chain.
Other blockchains that advertise smaller fees and faster transaction times all sacrifice on decentralization and/or security, and would not retain those advantages if their usage was at the same scale as ethereum.
You said people do what Vitalik says. Ethereum Classic is the prime counter argument that this is not true. It almost flipped Ethereum, split the community, and completely wreaked the price.
That's not supposed to happen if everybody follows the supreme leader.
Yes, that happened, but in the long run it failed and Vitalik still reigns supreme over the original Ethereum, despite him breaking one of the central promises of Ethereum in that scenario (the promise that "code is law").
Ethereum is better than the other complete scam coins, it's not a total scam. But it's not really permissionless and decentralized like Bitcoin.
