Actually nobody is forced to believe or invest in Electroneum. If you don't want it, just don't do it!
I am aware that there is a lot of FUD from monero lovers fearing that ETN might become a risk to there own investments.
There are also the complaints of the tech preachers who always want to have technical development in the middle of everything.
But I am sure that noone has to fear ETN. They will bring a lot of people from developing countries into the crypto market which will push every Monero wallet too.
and an innovation doesn't have to be pure technically. This is a huge experiment with a perma airdrop of coins to millions of people. Noone ever did it. Noone ever even thought of it. This is enough innovation for me. And I can't predict what will happen to exchange rates with this massive perma airdrop. But I am excited to watch it. I might lose my money I invested in it, but actually this is crypto. It is always a huge bet and a huge risk. That is what it makes it attractive to many people including myself.
Honestly, theres too many rose-tinted glasses looking at this thing. There are some obvious questions that no-one has answered, like how giving coins to everyone is going to result in good intrinsic value, or why everyone is tolerating the wallet being offline for weeks (given that Ethermine EU went offline for a few hours and there was a massive ruckus) or how copying a codebase (not that theres anything wrong with doing that) and some vague promises of mobile mining should result in a new coin?
The only thing I can see going for it is the massive hype and fanbase surrounding it might just be the one thing that saves it. It certainly wont be its technical merit (you cant dismiss technical in crypto, can you...). Anyway I have a little holding on that vague chance - I havent totally dismissed it, Im just not buying into it as much as some of the big holders.
Well said. Indeed it is rose tinted glas. And I am not denying that I am holding quite a good portion of ETN so I am obviously interested in the success of this coin.
And I am not denying technical aspects. But look at BTC. If it was an ICO these days it would be a complete mess. It is slow, it has extraordinary fees,... Monero is a far better technical base compared to Bitcoin. Zero proof protocol is groundbreaking and ZEC is doing okish. But compared to the disruptive technology it is underperforming.
At this point you have to admit that there must be more than just simple technical questions.
I see the huge opportunities for many businesses like telecom companies. Imagine if an african Vodafone would preinstall the app on all of their smartphones. If ETN just has little value they might attract a lot of people to buy from this provider. Actually it could make the phone bill pay itself.
I am far away from expecting it to moon. I dont see anything near 1$ in the next years because of the huge inflation caused by the perma airdrop. It also will not make huge instant jumps from one day to another. But with this viral bombs they can deliver they have the potential to attract a huge amount of people which would lead to partnerships with other companies.
And if I am wrong I will buy myself a really expensive bottle of whiskey to help me through my depressions

BTC is and always was a work-in-progress though, and frankly, I've heard many people refer to it more like 'digital gold' where it's a store of value rather than an instant payment system. One of the other coins can be the payment mechanism of the future.
None of these coins are perfect and I would definitely like to see something gain traction (preferably something I hold or mine) but Electroneum just seems to have been managed in such a cack-handed manner and the development team seem more interested in self-indulgent social media posts than development (seriously, launching merch and tying it in with charity seems like a low blow somewhat) - I've seen a few videos where Richard comes across as a bit of a bumbling buffoon rather than a technical genius too (um, do another take if you don't get it right the first time maybe)? They also haven't explained how they're going to achieve their goals, even if they want to put it in layman's terms, someone will want to see the technical implementation.
I don't think you can pre-install this on everyones' phones, this sounds like a botnet in the making and even if you somehow could, what's the value in absolutely everyone being able to 'mine' (I put it in quotes as it's not mining, it's some weird centralised token distribution thing which they have glossed over) something? If that could happen then I can't see it having much actual value if you just give the stuff to anyone 'smart enough' to buy a smartphone

Anyway, I'll wait and see. All I know is the mess with the launch is stuff they should have sorted before, not during and if it has to be during, then a hell of a lot quicker than they have. I almost dismissed Bitcoin before, I won't ever say something is useless or bad until I have the evidence but, from my end anyway, Electroneum definitely smells a bit off and you know what Occam's Razor says...