First, you held bitcoin in a wallet. You couldn't buy anything with it but at least having it was cool.

Second, you could give your bitcoin to a third party with a website that said you really had that much bitcoin. You forwent the promises of security, and you still couldn't buy anything with it, but at least you could now speculate in it.

Now, you can hold your claim to bitcoin buy buying a fund that owns the bitcoin.

The very existence of the ETFs and their enormous value show how far we are from the original idealisim into wherever we're at now. And... you still can't buy anything with bitcoin.