the fun part about the alts is ... they're all priced in btc ... so if btc ultimately fails / severely loses value , so does every single alt coin ...
I'm also not fan of altcoins, but to be the devils' advocate: Altcoins could have a better performance (compared to BTC), so it could make sense to invest in them. Also, there
may be an altcoin - at some point in the future - that could prove to be more successful than Bitcoin in general!
in general i agree with that as far as the possibility goes of an alt being more profitable short term than btc ... actually much of my gains have been as a result of alt p&d and mining of alts ... probably my best alt gain i bought 1btc worth of fluttercoin at 100 satoshi and sold out at nearly 3000 satoshi , just barely missing the peak ... it's today trading at less than 100 and the dev abandoned it , as is typical for most of the scam alts ... it's totally fucked trading most of those things ... and the notion that they are long term "investments" is truly a joke ... their bubbles typically last give or take a week , during which time you cannot leave your screen , and ultimately collapse very very quickly ... it's really like playing a game of chicken and you'd better be selling really fast when the eventual collapse inevitably happens ...
* thanks for getting rid of blatant alt shilling in the btc trollbox thread