Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

Why do they keep popping up

Because launching a new coin is easy.

Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

and more importantly staying?

99% of them don't stay, they die away, but as long as there is someone to move the blockchain the coin is alive.

Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

Isn't just one or two coins enough?

Who can define what's enough? It's mostly open source so anyone can launch their own coin if they want and that's what people are doing.

Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

Why do we need so many

We don't, most of them will die away, but there's a lot of crypto enthusiastics, developers and opportunists who want to launch their own coin for what ever reason. Some do it for fun or joke, some for serious business, some aiming for pump'n'dump. There are plenty of reasons.

Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

what's the point, what does anybody gain from that?

As I wrote above: some coins push the current technology forward or try to become a legitimate currency and/or business, but most (shitcoins) are just for people to try to make money with them.

Quote from: btguydude on December 15, 2015, 11:11:55 PM

It just seems impractical to me and I want to understand it.

No matter how useless the coin is, if it gets listed on an exchange, there's ALMOST always someone who makes a profit selling them, usually it's the dev or miners who get them cheap.