In crypto, the same metaphor is bitcoin (BTC) against ether (ETH). Since the crypto winter ended, bitcoin has outperformed. crypto over ether because historically it goes further and longer than bitcoin in the near future but until now it has underperformed.
If you wanted to explain it, you might suggest that ether developers are constantly tinkering with the blockchain, regularly injecting their new ideas into the system, which may or may not solve the blockchain problems they want to fix and that tinkering decreases the value of ether because inject uncertainty. A group of geniuses tinkering with the crypto financial system, in some ways exactly what governments do with fiat and the reason why those who hate fiat and love crypto want to get out of fiat. So Ethereum developers acting like a central bank might just hinder its valuation. “Code as law” isn't very convincing when some young, faceless programmer can act like Judge Dredd with your bag of crypto.
Bitcoin -1.2%, on the other hand, there is almost no such interference and no system flipping every time some developer thinks something is wrong with it. The idea of decentralization is still strong in bitcoin and changing the system is incredibly difficult and the structure is hardly decentralized. bitcoin marches on, seemingly impenetrable to much human influence.
If bitcoin experiences its much-anticipated bull run, then ether will go up with it and very likely catch up to bitcoin in percentage terms and possibly keep going, as happened during the last crypto bull run in 2021. An ether investor who is “all in” would also advise that ether will displace bitcoin in the future, and if bitcoin reaches over $100,000, that could mean $25,000 per token for ether.
Why would ETH displace BTC in the future? It doesn't make any sense. First off, Ethereum is an inflationary cryptocurrency. And second, it's centralized and less reliable than Bitcoin. You can't beat the real thing. Without BTC, ETH nor any of the zillions of altcoins on the market would exist today. Besides, BTC has first-mover advantage.
I understand many ETH holders are optimistic about Ethereum, but lets get realistic. BTC is the original project that started this craze. ETH is just an altcoin that came after BTC. Those are the facts. Set yourself forward 10-20 years, and ETH will still be the #2 cryptocurrency in market cap. Who cares, right? As long as you're able to make money with ETH, nothing else matters.