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Who decided what the purpose of blockchains was? Is this some sort of teleological argument, or a moral one, or just a desire?

When I'm getting paid by users I care what they want, and when I'm a user I care, but otherwise I'll write the code I feel like writing, and I suppose that's how the ETH devs work too.

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Blockchains were literally created as a way to prevent double-spending in cryptographically-backed currencies and claiming anything else is silly.

https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Double spending doesn't sound like a user problem to me. As a user id be happy to be able to double spend!

Would you be happy if your vendor also double-spent, and you ended up with nothing?

Users decide what the purpose of a blockchain is, simply because the blockchains that gain the most market share are chosen by users. Users follow developers that provide quality services, and developers pick the chain that meets their application needs closest.

Of course it’s great when people experiment on their own hobbies, I’m guilty of that pleasure myself all too often! Just please don’t use it as an excuse to attack people doing something different from you, as we see the btc and eth communities doing sadly too often.

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