What made Bitcoin so successful? How couldn't altcoins like defeat it at the early stages? Is it because of the overwhelming support of the community that made bitcoin what it is today?
Bitcoin is the mother of all crypto currencies and BlockChain technology started its journey with bitcoin only. So that pioneer status has made bitcoin immensely popular and enjoying the public trust since its inception. Bitcoin has made the blockchain popular and with it comes all the altcoins what we have today.
Also the idea of decentralization came in to picture with bitcoin which got back-up from the communities around the world. Overall i believe bitcoin became popular because it was the pioneer in crypto coin. Otherwise, we have a lot of coins available in the market today which is technologically superior than bitcoin.
the idea of "decentralization" was already around. specially in other fields. for example the file sharing (torrents) is a very good example of it where the term "peer" gained a new meaning. and bitcoin is similar with everything being peer to peer when they build on top of the longest chain that everyone shares.
the idea of decentralizing money became famous with bitcoin though.
Yes thats right the word decentralization was made famous through Bitcoin. I started coming across that word ever since I discovered Bitcoin, and I think thats one thing that made bitcoin what it is, because most of the people ask always says its decentralization.