why ethereum

I crossposted this in r/ethtrader and didn’t receive much in terms of pushback so hopefully some here can help offer their insights.

What makes Ethereum desirable? The majority of activity on-chain seems to revolve around garbage, whether that is pure scams, ignorant degens, or delusional devs who think they will change the world with a token that does XYZ.

Are ETH based smart contracts really that significant? Is Google someday going to use Ethereum to power their ecosystem? I am genuinely trying to understand the long term use case that makes this something unique.