The idea of me getting a loan against my stock would be based on the performance of the companies and the products.

I would argue that the same applies to crypto. If I am willing to lend you stablecoins in exchange for some Ethereum tokens I am sending a signal that I personally value your possession. Have thousands of people do the same and now the whole market approves of this idea, plus the automated protocols make it so that everyone gets their fair share of the trade.

Volatility and utility is a different issue though.

Now you have so many contenders running along the same lines i just at this point feel anyone of them could breakout and at the very least absorb some of the ethereum market share but a significant amount.

None of them can be contenders tbh. They are all POS chains where a private entity controls 80-90% of the validators. At any given point in time Solana or BSC could just run away with user funds and no one could do anything about this. With ETH this is not the case. I also think that this is the main reason none of them is taking off in user numbers and TVL, only in token price.

it's also like not even in the top 100 but steem was in the top 100 years and years ago with more money.

Steemit was in the top 100 during a time when people didn't even know what an ICO is. As soon as the ICO craze took off everyone forgot about Steemit. Now we have 8k+ projects and the fact that Hive can stay relevant in the top 200 is enough for me.

This chart is from 3-4 months ago but still, the growth is there and mostly driven by Splinterlands.

Anyway okay there may be potential there but then i wonder do people really like the game that much or do they like the idea they can make money from the game..

I would say that 90% play it because of the earning potential but focusing only on the incentive is wrong IMO. While people keep playing Splitnerlands the in-game assets become more recognizable in the crypto market and more valuable (usually) over time. Splinterlands could expand in an MMORPG or a FPS game if it wanted to and still keep using the same NFTs. This is where I see the main value building up. Not in the game concept itself but in the infinite value proposition that comes with NFT assets and brand recognition. It's no secret that Splinterlands is the absolute leader in active players. No other GameFi project can even come close on the charts.

Everything else you mentioned boils down to personal opinions so I'm not going to debate those points or even try to prove you wrong. If you think DeFi is a passing fad I'm OK with that, there is enough evidence to support that claim but there is also enough evidence to support my claims that Curve stablecoin pools create a lot of value for those that provide liquidity, to the protocol itself and to the traders that need to exchange stables. Of course, we could circumvent all of this with one single stablecoin that becomes the standard but that is not how markets work, especially in crypto.

I have the same opinion regarding blogging on Hive. Some may do it for the money but a lot of people do it because they enjoy it, myself included. The financial incentive only gives me more room and flexibility to make my work even better because I know it could potentially earn a few bucks, whereas I was doing a lot of this same stuff for free during the past 5 or 6 years. If we were all here for the money would we have these lenghty conversations?

Also thanks for the hint on the Pulse chain. I had no idea about it so it's time to do some reearch.