Yes, altcoin is a huge distraction and I’m talking about use case. Today we can see many altcoins being used for payments, etc, and they happen to be a lot of them. If they were not in existence and it was just Bitcoin, all of that usage will fall on Bitcoin instead and that means way more adoption than there is today.
Who can guarantee that when altcoins didn't exist then Bitcoin would be as big as it is now and I'm not saying that altcoins affect Bitcoin's journey. The existence of altcoins gives more confidence to this industry so that every time people make decisions after making mistakes and in the end they will switch to Bitcoin. For me, altcoins are one way to switch to bitcoin because not everyone has the budget to buy so they have to look for alternatives first to make the final decision to buy bitcoin.
But I’m not sure to say that it isn’t good altcoins were created. They are serving their individual unique purposes (even if I know that some are just unnecessary copycats)
They have different goals, but in this industry the influence of each of Bitcoin and altcoins is greater. Many are imitators, but there are also those who go it alone with the ability to advance, but because most fail, people equate them all.