Ethereum will be one of the projects that wins long term… let me explain.

A lot of current Ethereum arguements about it "failing long term" can be boiled down to current issues with scalability (gas fees) and, as a recent post mentioned, the current UX that Ethereum along with a host of other projects have. These two problems pose some of the biggest issues in terms of removing frictional barriers for mass use as web 3.0 or "the internet of money".

Scaling: Gas fees are very high. If this current iteration and development of Ethereum was the final product, it would be a failure and would not be the ecosystem suited for mass adoption, let's make that clear.

Currently, Ethereum is still one of the few projects in crypto that can be considered to be actually decentralized, all while boasting a majority of defi activity. Guaranteeing decentralization requires some level of lower throughput, at least on layer 1 when compared to more centralized solutions.

Even projects like Algorand, which claim to have solved the blockchain trilemma, will long term have similar fee issues of Ethereum on it's layer 1. In a world where blockchain networks are mass adopted, blockchains like Solana and Algorand that are capable of 45,000 to 60,000 tps will still struggle with making everyday transactions cheap, especially considering nft minting, defi transactions on top of more simple wallet to wallet transactions.

If the goal of web 3.0 is to become an internet of money that is mass adopted, long term every blockchain will provide the same frictional barrier that Ethereum has today in terms of fees.

Ultimately, expanding to hundreds of thousands or millions of TPS will be achieved through layer 2s that inherit layer 1 security, such as rollups (ZK, optimistic rollups) and state channels (Cardano's hydra, BTC lightening).

With layer 2s poised to actually make mass global adoption a reality and exponentially increase transfer of data and value peer to peer, it becomes obvious that the best layer 1 isn't necessarily the quickest, but rather the most decentralized and apt for layer 2s. Ethereum, with over 150k validators in just the beacon chain along with it's rollup centric roadmap is poised to provide this level of massive layer 1 security and to make the most use of layer 2s, which are already up, running and begining the processing of decentralizing thier sequencers. Combine this with shards, and you can a vibrant ecosystem of layer 2s that will inherit Ethereum's massive decentralization in the proof of stake model.

As far as Ethereum's UX is concerned, I think in the future a majority of users won't even touch layer 1. A majority of transactions will be kept on layer 2s which already have a remarkably better UX experience, just take a look at DYDX or Loopring. So in a world where network effect (just look at Bitcoin) and optimisation wins, I think Ethereum will definitely be here to stay and is one of the clear winners long term.