You make it sound like ether can only be used to pay for gas. It can also be transferred to another account in a transaction, it's the native currency for making payments. It will also be required for staking.
yeah, with better competitors on its own blockchain!
DAI and other stable value assets are good enough for that. DAI even has its own sidechain xDAI to let it be the native unit without needing Ether as gas, and can settle states back to the Ethereum Blockchain.
Looking forward to the staking. Vitalik has so far been a one-hit wonder 6 years ago, not sure if you should really listen to him, but some people plan on rolling out the staking version soon.