I am also a great fan of BTC but to tell the truth I find this question a bit difficult. To my mind, it is not the AOL of crypto but maybe it will be with time as I believe that 2019 will bring changes
It's really hard to compare bitcoin and AOL. What's the point? AOL has died down because of competition? No, AOL died because of the incompetency of the management, believed me I know everything because I used to work with them.
As for bitcoin, there's LN that will help about the fee's and scaling issue, its been slowly adopted so if the OP's problem is about the fee's and scaling and the fundamental flaw then perhaps LN might be the solution in long term.