What services would benefit from anonymous transactions?
All of them
Practically speaking, how useful is Monero exactly?
Exactly 100% useful, every single Monero ever produced will have value. Value is useful.
There are hardly any services that accept Monero, making it basically worthless as a currency.
This is confirmation bias. Surely you didn't purchase a crypto currency in 2014 thinking that your neighbors were using them at the grocery store downtown?
what's the point of a currency if you can't buy anything with it?
You can already purchase anything you would like with any currency.
How concerned are people about privacy and anonymity?
Very concerned. For example, I'm wearing clothes right this very second. You also are not aware of my name. I'm sure the same will go for the majority of people you will ever interact with over the internet.
Just because we are supposed to be concerned, doesn't mean we will/are concerned.
Totes agree
Other cryptocurrencies boast anonymity too, what sets Monero apart from the crowd exactly?
Brand new code base, using different cryptography implementations than the Satoshi client or any of its derivatives.
Does Monero have a future?
Fuck yeah!
Or will it soon die like most cryptocurrencies?
I don't think anyone here is a fortune teller, or diviner. If you do find one, please do let the rest of us know.
How much value does Monero really have?
Right this minute - $ 3,040,959 as 23% of the total emission which would yield $13,200,000 at 100% emission, plus whatever value you place on hopes and dreams (CMC doesn't list those).
I bought into this coin because so many people have convinced themselves and me that this is the next best thing, and I wanted to profit from it. The lowering price is obviously not profitable to me, and now I'm starting to have doubts about this coin.
Personally, I don't think you're having increasing doubts, yet more decreasing beliefs. The doubts were likely always there. Seeing as how your main belief you held in buying into this was to only attain profit, obviously your beliefs have decreased in your relative position to your doubts. In that case, I highly suggest you become motivated to discover some more legitimate beliefs, rather than let them shrink in scale to your doubt, lest you will then be in a position to really lose money.