I still think its a good backup plan to keep some gold/silver in your house incase of an EMP or some other big natural disaster that leaves us without internet.
Dude...I'm not saying gold or silver is entirely useless, but if there's an EMP from, say, a nuclear airburst there's going to be more useful items than precious metals--assuming you're alive to use them.
And if we're talking about a relatively simple case of the internet crapping out, I think cash would be a lot more useful. If you're thinking of a case where fiat would be worthless, then I'd say again there are more useful things. Land, food, water, guns and those kind of things are going to be your best friends. In a real disaster, I highly doubt people are going to be resorting to precious metals bartering. I don't care what the goldbugs say. That's all hype, trying to get you to buy metals.
Absolutely right, in the cases of natural disasters, it is damn obvious that no one will ever bother themselves about some gold or silver but would rather prefer something they can at least lay their hands on and will be useful for that period of time.
You see people trying to find shelter, food to eat, clothes to wear and then you want to bring the idea of exchanging gold or silver, it won't even suffice. Like you said, it is all hype and no matter what they want people to keep believing, that does not change it from being hype.