We definitely don't need over 1000 alts for real use, even half a dozen seems to be six too many. Only one should prevail. On the other hand, this multitude of coins is there for another purpose. So many coins exist today not for anything real and useful but rather to satisfy the needs of human beings in greed and thrill. They are created entirely for speculation purposes aka pump and dump. With the speculation said to be on the wane presently, we should expect the number of altcoins to diminish drastically in the near term. Having endured massive losses during the last downfall of the cryptocurrencies, people have become more particular and choosy about pouring their money into shady wildcat ventures and outright scam schemes.