What has happened in those 12 years has been a great deal of scams, get rich quick scheme a and instability. Bitcoin has also become dominated by a few major players and is a power structure in itself, not really benefitting ordinary people much at.
The Bitcoin network has stayed remarkably stable and it's still possible to run a node on a raspberry pi, which is done exactly because the Bitcoin community value the ability of normal people to participate and be able to verify their transactions and that of the whole chain.
Concerning scams. Let's look at another relatively open technology. Email.
The vast majority of emails are actually spam, and a lot of those are scams (phishing, Nigerian princes etc.). In the beginning a lot of people fell for email scams, many still do, but by and large people are aware they exist and are able to use email productively without constantly falling victim to scams.
And well, it benefits (smart) ordinary people. That is, those who have invested or are investing. Smart money is here - and small investors are here too. And I'm saying purposefully "investing" as opposed to "trading". The former doesn't require any technical skills.
As for "ordinary people" not versed into technologies doing what their government is telling them to do (bans, warnings, hackers, criminals, murderers, ...), well... I'm feeling sorry for them, but crypto cannot just replace local country currencies without government consent. Now think again: who is to blame?
personally speaking I'm paying every day with a crypto card (which gives me a few % cashback ..). But that's ok, you seem to purposefully want to miss the train, can't help people against themselves I guess :shrug:
Also velocity will get rid of volatility !