Here's my new story whenever someone tells me how "impossible" it is for Monero to ever reach or exceed the Bitcoin network:
Pretend there are only two cell phone providers, PubTel and PrivTel. Both have a unique structure.... they give away free cell phones, but their cell phone minutes (and data plans) cost more the more people are on their network.
So if there are few users, the cell phone minutes and data are extremely cheap, and with many users they become extremely expensive. There are other providers, but many have large technical flaws so it's really down between these two for any real competition.
Oh, and one more important point: There's no inter-network capabilities: if you want to talk to PrivTel customers or message them, you have to use a PrivTel phone. If you want to talk to PubTel's customers, you have to use their phone and PubTel minutes/data. Nothing says you can't own both phones, if you pay for them, but each network remains separate from the other.
Oh, and one last fact: PubTel launched first and has a much bigger network that PrivTel, but the way they work, anyone (users and non-users) can log onto PubTel.com and see a complete record of any user's calls, texts, and data usage. Some have criticized this, but many say that it doesn't matter: do you really care if strangers can see that you called your girlfriend, texted your mom you 'love her', or visited CNN? Only criminals and people with something to hide mind the public nature of the PubTel network. PubTel might have no privacy and be a lot more expensive, but they have the biggest network and many think this assures their continued dominance.
PrivTel is a much smaller network, and not as many people are on it yet. The good news is that because of this minutes and data are orders of magnitude cheaper! Also, it has totally private billing. No one can see who you call, and no one can see what websites you visit or what your text messages are. It's obvious that this is a huge advantage, but PrivTel is currently a little harder to use (but getting easier) and you can't call as many people with it yet.
People make the ridiculous claim that PrivTel might have some limited future... but will never match or exceed the PubTel network.
Do you see how insane that claim is?
I can definitely see your point by putting it in those terms... but I think there could/should be more comparisons in this scenario to completely view the scope of what the crypto world is fully doing. Since it's pretty obvious to assume that bitcoin will remain the public sector and monero will become the private sector of communication (in currencies); well what about the future of the next "road runner" of cryptocurrencies?
If you were to compare the public and private sectors in terms of internet connection (because in your scenario, you describe the two coins as a form of communication); then it would be safe to say that both of these currencies are still pretty much using "dial-up". What if there comes a coin that offers a reliable communication of currency between people all around the world at "road runner" speeds? I mean, I can remember back in the day when road runner became everyones internet connection of choice because no one had to deal with that annoying ass dial up tune I assume everyone on here has burned into their memory; as well as no one had to wait a minute or two for a page to pull up.
This is what I imagine when thinking of issues of cryptocurrencies today; the extremely long wait times for transactions to be confirmed... I'm just afraid/excited that there might be a crypto that's about to come out that would essentially revolutionize the transaction speeds and make bitcoin and cryptonote coins both obsolete.