>most big companies that invest in Ethereum just do it because they don't want to miss "the next big thing", not because Ethereum solves any of their problems.
I disagree. First let me say there are two types of companies, those that make use of IT and those that are themselves about IT (ie Microsoft, IBM). Now those that only make use of IT often ignore what their own tech people tell them, and so they are susceptible to tech fads.
But the IT companies pay very close attention to their IT people. And the IT companies have lots of IT people as smart or smarter than you who are quite qualified to look at Ethereum and figure out if there is anything valuable there. The fact that lots of IT companies are getting behind Ethereum says to me it is really going to be valuable, at least for their sorts of businesses.
Let me add that nowadays, banks and other finance institutions are basically IT companies that happen to also have a lot of people that deal with customers directly. So if they think they can use the blockchain to eliminate intermediaries and in the process save billions of dollars, I tend to believe they are correct.
You may be right, however, that a lot of the people at Ethereum meetups don't really understand it.