Besides the operators (miners, devs) following people are the main profiteers:

- in a progressive well working country, mainly organized crime, terrorists and people wanting to destabilize the country, so if you live in such a (non existing) country you would not want it at all

- in a autocratic country it's the opposite, you want it really really hard

- in a dysfunctional country it can be helpful but the "it's safe from government manipulation" point matters less then the it's not operated by the government point

Now most countries are somewhere in-between so there is no clear cut answer.

But as far as I can tell all ethically "good" use-cases which couldn't simpler be archived with other means are also illegal by law of at least some involved parties/countries.

Now by-law illegal doesn't mean bad.

Still IMHO Bitcoin completely failed as currency, and some of the other promises aren't really there either.

It did have a temp. huge success as security, (stock like) speculation target and high risk speculators (at some point, not now).

Not really, no. What you call manipulation is really necessary maintenance and management meant to avoid the hypervolatility we see in crypto.

How many real world experiments do we need to run before people accept that markets, especially for money, aren't self regulating.

Maybe, but that's not Bitcoin for sure.

"Manipulated by governments" primarily means "tax evasion and crime".

It's the first, but not the best, and while it benefits from being the first, that will only take it so far.