People consistently don't listen.
Crypto pumpers on the other hand tend to not care and say whatever BS they want to pump their bags.
It is a shame that your only exposure to the space comes from pump monkeys who don't understand that a blockchain is barely more than a distributed linked list (hell, it's basically just glorified git) and the real innovation was not the data structure, but the integration of proof of work to create Byzantine fault tolerance.
I'm pretty sure the only difference between a Merkle tree and an Oak is the theoretically infinite branching. Is that right? /s
Me? I think the tech is intellectually interesting, but doesn't really scale to the point where it can provide a "world economy". If nothing else, with Proof-of-Work, you need 51% of ALL available computing resources dedicated to maintaining the chain, which is an incredible waste (if you don't have a majority of all available computing power, the chain is vulnerable). With Proof-of-Stake, you need a majority of the economic system dedicated to just maintaining the economic system.
So, intellectually interesting, but practically useless.
Such advocates are the fringe. Most bitcoin advocates are saying "If you're not buying bitcoin you're an idiot! It's easy money! My critics are no-coiners who didn't listen to me!"
They're not the fringe, they're the core that the fringe pump monkeys looking for a quick buck latch onto and promptly ignore.
The majority of people who talk about literally anything aren't worth listening to, and if you can't differentiate between the two, we have bigger problems to work through.
These are fringe. The cynical and predatory advocates are the ones who are actually heard by the naive marks.