Yeah sure
> Gas fees can be hundreds of dollars to interact with a DAO
It's not "hundreds of dollars" to withdraw tokens from a savings account. More like $50. That's still way too much, but I don't pull money out of my savings account often enough for it to matter. It will get better over time.
> There are not banks hacked where people lose all of their money.
Not in the US, but there are other countries that exist.
None of the DeFi platforms I have ever used have been hacked, but I'm glad for the possibility! It gives me more options in terms of risk vs. reward.
> People lose passwords all the time.
Yep this one is bad, but there are ways to improve it (social key recovery etc) that people are working on.
On the other hand, I've spent a ton of time on the phone with banks trying to get access to my own accounts every time I move. I've never had that problem with DeFi because they don't KYC.
> Coin prices are absurdly volatile.
Doesn't matter at all, I'm talking about stablecoins. I only really use fiat backed stablecoins, so there's almost no principle risk.
Also from this point I think it's pretty clear you don't understand how people use DeFi. Nobody is holding strait unleveraged BTC in a DeFi platform. You would just hold BTC directly, in which case the cost to withdraw would be ~$3 right now.
> Can you make a serious case that DAOs are better
For me they are infinitely more convenient. I've spent at least 10 hours this year on the phone with banks and financial institutions. I've spent 0 minutes trying to get access to my defi accounts. I use a trezor for cold storage.
The rates are better because I'm willing to tolerate more risk (and I think that smart contract and collateral risk for certain platforms is currently mispriced).
> which _specific_ projects are better
Compound, other savings platforms (I don't want to name them).
Centralized exchange savings products are mostly made possible by DeFi, and these are also better products than traditional banks for people like me. Including Coinbase, Binance, even OKEx.