It is different this time!
Yes and no.
The ability to transfer arbitrary amounts of currency to anyone on the planet quickly and without prior restraint is a new capability humans have never experienced before. There is a large pent up demand for this capability.
Of course the same rules of supply and demand apply to Bitcoin as much as they apply to anything else.
We will have to see about the "arbitrary". If if want to convert 1Mio$ to BTC send it over and my friend on the other side wants to convert it back to $, what would happen to the Market? High volatility, trading bots possibly eating way more than the transaction fee and so forth.
We need somebody to pump way more liquidity in before this can get to be useful on a larger scale.