The best analogy I can think of is: Bitcoin is like UUCP, which was invented in 1978 and was actively used for 20 years, then when TCP/IP Internet got popular, UUCP usage dropped, but one of the last legacy UUCP services was shut down only in 2012, although very few people used it since 2000.
Bitcoin now is like UUCP in 1994 when PPP connection protocol was standardized. It can still grow, but not at its prior rate, and new emerging protocols and technologies are on the rise to make it obsolete within a few years. Or even faster than that, as the time it takes to develop technologies has contracted, as numerous examples of late show.
How about this analogy?
Little better, but still misses the point. UUCP to TCP/IP is like Mastercoin is to Bitcoin - a higher level file exchange protocol on top of IP, replaced by FTP or bittorrent now. The underlying protocol, the one whose packets all routers are passing around, did never change and is being painfully upgraded for like 20 years now to overcome deadly limitations in the original implementation. Because infrastructure made tons of assumptions about tcp.ip, much like alot of assumptions about Bitcoin being the main crypto has been already made and are added daily. With each passing day it is less and less likely that bitcoin will ever be replaced by something else.
It will be extended (because it is quite extendable), modified, sure. But the bitcoin blockchain is here to stay and be the main point of reference for a trusted ledger, deal with it.