ether is so firmly based in its place that its unlikely that something will be better, especially when layer 2 is developed to reduce commissions, because its high commissions that force you to use other cryptocurrencies
but other cryptocurrencies can't work like Ethereum and basically Ethereum is different from other cryptocurrencies which have the potential to take the 2nd position.
The high GAS is due to transaction overload which causes queues to be long, while the number of miners remains the same. It seems that this is easy for the team or developer to handle, I monitored it 1 month ago where Uniswap was the cause of expensive GAS. In the end, Vitalik made improvements to the network to significantly reduce GAS consumption in a short time. This means that if there is more time, then this will not be a big problem for those of us who use Ethereum in the long run
Actually, to date, the transaction price has already dropped significantly, but if the scalability problem is solved, then the commission on the Ethereum network will be even lower. But Vitalik Buterin also said that the scalability problem will not be solved in an instant, with one update, but the solution to the problem may take years. But if we talk about the question posed, then today there is no cryptocurrency on the cryptocurrency market at all, which could even theoretically surpass the capabilities of Ethereum in terms of functionality and popularity.