did "teh mass" ever had gold in any meaningful way?
hmnope.
Yes, once upon a time when gold was money. Now gold 2.0 is money.
The plebs didn't hold any significant amount of gold. They were too poor for that.
Even the poor needed a currency for the exchange of goods and services, for the majority of known human history this has been in the form of gold and silver coins, my point still stands.
Or copper, wheat, grains and other such commodities.
Your point doesn't stand because you've provided factual evidence against it: gold was never a one-size-fits-all type of deal.
In the same way Bitcoin cannot and will never accomodate all use cases