I haven't seen any profitable cryptocurrency companies which do anything genuinely useful for non-crypto people in the real world - all the profitable ones are

I haven't seen any profitable cryptocurrency companies which do anything genuinely useful for non-crypto people in the real world - all the profitable ones are inward-looking, i.e. engaged in "building out the ecosystem" (or "extending the pyramid scheme" depending on your perspective), e.g. the cryptocurrency exchanges. That's a big difference between the internet and cryptocurrency - the internet can be said to have started benefitting ordinary people within a few years, but there's no sign of cryptocurrency ever doing anything useful for the proverbial "man on the Clapham omnibus" after 13 years. In that sense cryptocurrency is more like the gold rush - some people find gold, most people make money selling the shovels, but the vast majority of the world are so far removed from it all that it doesn't impact them in any way whatsoever (except perhaps for the negative effect it has on their environment).