The open protocols of the world wide web, including HTTP, SMTP, POP, are the most impressive example of commons-based creation in the history of mankind. No corporation needs to be paid a license fee for using HTTP to launch a website. There is no need to give away your personal-identity data when using SMTP to send emails.
If Tim Berners-Lee had included an open protocol to map social identity [or another one to index webpages and return results based on rank], Facebook [or Google] may not have become what it is today.
The value of Bitcoin may seem nebulous and all the speculation around it, one of the worst forms of Capitalism, but blockchain symbolizes the hope for a new golden era of open protocols to create a new, more egalitarian incarnation of the world wide web, powered by open protocols.
Success will depend on who will eventually pick up the baton.
A brilliant NYT feature by Steven Johnson: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/magazine/beyond-the-bitcoin-bubble.html