A lot of altcoins are useless, but there're plenty of good ones that have an actual purpose, but we don't need as many tokens. Ethereum is one of them.
That's certainly true, mate. There are a lot of tokens on the crypto market right now, which are useless with no future at all. They're simply quick money grabs by their devs, instead of being something productive for the mainstream world. Because Ethereum enables anyone to launch his/her token with ease (without the need to start a Blockchain from scratch), it has been the main driver of this movement. Lots of tokens were simply created for ICO purposes within ETH's early days, but now most of them are forgotten or abandoned by their devs.
Despite this, there are still quite a few altcoins and tokens which are useful. You just need to find them by performing your own research. Those which provide active development, and innovation, have a higher probability of being used more than any other speculative cryptocurrency.
Speaking of useful altcoins, I'd say that the top cryptocurrencies in market cap fit the bill nicely. The best picks are Ethereum, EOS, Litecoin, Cardano, and Monero. But again, doing your own research will help you determine which coin is best for long term investment.
Nonetheless, I believe that altcoins are still useful since they provide many features not available within the Bitcoin blockchain. Even if the Lightning Network goes full steam ahead, altcoins will still be around the crypto space. The only thing is that most altcoins will die, while a small portion will remain with real use cases for the mainstream world. Just my thoughts
