After reading this forum for long enough I get the impression from most posting here that they believe that Bitcoin will be the ONLY coin accepted by merchants/vendors or otherwise used by the mainstream. I don't think I've ever read anyone put forth a point of view like I am about to write here and it is this: Over time, most vendors will accept several cryptos just like they do with multiple credit cards or debit cards. In the case of cryptos vendors will probably accept more cryptos than they do credit cards.
I posted something earlier questioning the reasons why so many are loyal to Bitcoin vs. other cryptos. I pointed out that Bitcoin is facing many problems scaling and therefore has high fees and long transaction times for typical purchases. Those that respond miss the point when they say that "sooner or later other cryptos will see the same problems". The point is that these alt-coins currently do not have the same problems and they may have already solved or plan to solve any potential scaling problems. We all will have to wait and see what happens. While all of this is sorting itself out I believe that vendors will expand the range of coins that they accept. The less volatile the better.
Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Diners Club, Discover, etc are accepted by most mainstream merchants. Now swap out these credit cards for the top cryptos...you can do it in your head but if you want to write it out here that's up to you. I believe that this is a vision of the crypto future...and the coins worth buying if one is so inclined.
Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Why or why not?
I don't fully agree with you. Not everyone in this forum thinks that Bitcoin is the only coin that will be accepted by the mainstream shops. If you look around this forum you'd notice that there is a lot of posters that want their coin and the coin that their in accepted in the shops that are near them. Some coins are working towards that goal.
As for Visa, Mastercard, AMEX, etc being swapped so people can purchase things with Bitcoin -it wouldn't make sense. The Government would have to spend more money on tax regulations. The Government does not need to spend on taxing Bitcoin because they can just have their friends at the large banks change the way those credit card companies operate. That would mean that they are likely to just adopt Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Even if the credit card companies and cryptocurrency work together so that people can spend one or the other in shops -they still have to comply with tax.