What is there to even be afraid of with August 1st? Even with a (remote chance of a) potential chain split and possible network disruption, so what? Even with a subsequent significant drop in price, so what? It's not like the price of bitcoin will continue to freefall. As long as you take the necessary precautions of securing your bitcoins you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Once it all plays out, we'll see what's what and go on from there.
People care because we are talking about money here, and some have invested an important part of their life savings in it, so it is not as easy as you think, bitcoin is going to recover no matter what happens but for those holding coins it is not as easy to recover from huge losses.