I think I finally understand why some people genuinely think bitcoin has no "intrinsic" value.

For most of human history valuable assets and valuable items have always been physical, and if they were digital they had a corporation behind them dictating their value. For example airline miles, credit card points, in game currencies, rewards points, etc. All of these things have a corporation behind them dictating their value or at least dictating a minimum value due to redemption rights.

Bitcoin is fundamentally different, it is decentralised meaning there is no corporation behind it dictating or ensuring its value. People cannot understand or fathom a digital good having value while simultaneously having no corporation behind it dictating its value. This is the disconnect, these people see a digital good with no corporation behind it and automatically think it has no intrinsic value.

People can understand a physical good like gold or oil having free market value without a corporation behind it, but for all of human history digital goods have always required a corporation behind them to give them value. People believe just because bitcoin is digital it can't possibly have value unless a corporation is behind it dictating its value like other centralised digital goods.

Bitcoin is the first digital good that is decentralised, scarce, and traded on a global free market like physical assets such as gold and oil allowing it to have value without a corporation behind it dictating its value.

People who think bitcoin has no intrinsic value live in the old paradigm of digital goods requiring a corporation behind them to give them value. People who understand the free market value of bitcoin live in the new paradigm of digital goods having free market value because they are decentralised, provably scarce, and traded on a global free market.

its simply the old paradigm vs the new paradigm and people who think bitcoin has no intrinsic value are stuck in the old paradigm way of thinking.