The get rich quick crowd overwhelmed everything else but didn't suffocate it, just merely put it way in the background.
Skynet feels more like the next step in P2P solutions like BitTorrent, than what most people think of when talking about blockchain solutions. It kind of also confirms that the only real use-cases of decentralized trustless solutions are relatively trivial problems like those involving purely digital assets (files, domains, etc)
I don't think anyone will claim that the technology isn't interesting. I think it's super interesting. But I think there's way too much hype, especially on the financial side (currencies, DeFi, etc)
In this scenario, the world can execute 100-200,000 transactions per second on Ethereum, and people are able to execute these transactions from any software interface, including a browser wallet extension.
This would make electronic payments cheap - on order of costing $0.01 in fees - and you would be able to send a payment in a stablecoin, like USDC or DAI which track the value of 1 USD.
In this scenario, you could send micro-payments to any party on the internet, without having a pre-existing relationship with or divulging personal information to them, and without both parties relying on the same trusted third party payment system.
Imagine thousands of news sites all around the world offering short-term browsing access, like a 1 day browsing pass for $0.05, and all of these offerings being accessible with just one browser-based wallet.
This can become even more amenable to metered payments when combined with other scalability solutions, like Plasma chains and payment channel networks.
In such scenarios, fees would decline orders magnitude of more, making it possible to send fractions of a cent in value for consuming tiny amounts of goods/services. For instance, you pay 0.25 cents worth of a crypto asset to access one paywalled article. This can be done behind the scenes, with you simply pressing 'okay' on a consent form. No registration, or the divulging of private identification information or credit card details necessary. A single peer-to-peer transfer of electronic cash suffices.
Suddenly content providers have a massive new source of revenue apart from advertising that can sustain them, leading to the production of more quality content, and information consumers can avail themselves of this content with much greater convenience and privacy, and without the financial risk of laying our $20 for a subscription they may not use.