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This is different from new coins that add nothing new except speculative potential for people who buy them early. With bitcoin there is the network affect and the aforementioned utility, what do new altcoins that change nothing bring to the table for the non-early adopter? As far as I can tell nothing. Each time something succeeds, the bar for anything that would take it over gets higher.
Exactly.
That's why I said this back in October 2012 when Litecoin was at $0.04:
...So the solution [to Bitcoin Foundation concerns] is simply to promote at least one other cryptocurrency in the market (ideally there might be 2 for better distribution), and do it before Bitcoin gets a stronger foothold. The timing of TBF announcement is fantastic, because it leaves room in Bitcoin's life for competition to check it. ...
One thing that altcoin bring to the table is a larger volume; if for example bitcoin were to be the only coin it would mean that the early adopters hold, say 40% of all volume that ever gonna be. If litecoin became even with bitcoin however, it would mean that the early adopter would hold a much lower fraction and that future coins would become much more distributed. I believe that neither bitcoin nor litecoin will be the mainstream cc, but rather a coin that meet many of the whish-list features AND becomes widely distributed from the start.