Not to overhype the potential of Ethereum, but one can also go beyond the obvious "next steps" and start to see entire new avenues that a technology opens up.

Not to overhype the potential of Ethereum, but one can also go beyond the obvious "next steps" and start to see entire new avenues that a technology opens up. I say "start to see" because it is very hard to predict how one particular avenue of unforeseen capability might lead to success! In the early web, there were many of these kinds of use cases talked about and a lot of effort was made to bridge the technological gaps to get to the anticipated capabilities. One use case that stands out in this regard is ecommerce (before secure web connections existed). But the real interesting advances are those that are not obvious from the get-go! These stem from creative modifications, and of course the very long slog of trying to realize the potential of those modifications. It takes confidence in the people who do the work, and it takes many, many failures. Social software stands out as an example of this long slog that ends in success. It took more than a decade of incremental advances -- from forums and chat rooms in the early web to the blogging scene in the early 2000s -- to get to where it stands today: a set of widely-implemented and widely-understood capabilities. So definitely consume that list of use cases, and understand the near-future better. But if you're interested in assessing and leveraging the full potential of Ethereum, definitely learn about its basic capabilities, then open up your imagination. You might see a glimmer of what could be, and perhaps be a part of getting there.