It’s the best way I’ve found to send money to strangers on the internet. I’ve opened unofficial bounties and paid open source developers to implement them, as one example.
It really “just works” in a way where other crypto currency doesn’t.
I still support many other projects in this space, but Monero was the only one I felt comfortable actually using.
But you're totally right, only monero have a 'legitimate' usecase (bypass the taxation laws).
So they are theoretically a good idea with no practical application in the real world.
In particular there are a lot of variables around reselling restrictions, profit sharing, meaningful ownership, copyright, etc.
It has no other real legal or legitimate use case, it otherwise works the same as other cryptos. You could just pay those developers in cash. Most developers I've known that aren't hardcore crypto zealots prefer to get paid in cash.