They were never really interested in being "the real bitcoin" to be honest. It was created by miners who makes millions of dollars per day from mining and the way bitcoin is moving right now means miners will make a lot less profit, especially with the halving now they are actually making a lot less, thanks to price being so much higher they are making more in fiat, but they are making much less in bitcoin terms.
This is why they created BCH, hoping that many people would move to it and they would keep on making profit just like they used to, or at least they could make the difference from there to continue making a good return, which failed.
As they say, "money talks". As long as there's money to be made, nothing else matters. At least, that's how miners and developers think nowadays. Bitcoin Cash was mainly created as a means for profit, not a serious cryptocurrency project for day-to-day use. The experiment worked, as people who owned Bitcoin got "free money" after Bitcoin Cash was created. By that time, crypto wasn't as mainstream as it is right now.
Nowadays, there's fierce competition from many blockchain networks with smart contract functionalities. It's all about "De-Fi" and NFTs, leaving single-purpose blockchain networks in the dust (with the exception of Bitcoin). Bitcoin Cash is just clone of Bitcoin with a few simple tweaks. Increasing the block size to a higher value is not enough to bring the masses into the project. There needs to be innovation or people will lose interest into BCH until it slowly fades into oblivion. From all of the Bitcoin-based forks on the market, I think Bitcoin Cash will survive. But it won't reach that far in price if it doesn't provide innovation to the crypto/Blockchain space. I wouldn't worry about this as long as we have the original Bitcoin (BTC). Just my opinion
