Can POW actually become "outdated"? The costs, the incentives, the game-theory that come with mining is what's keeping everything together.
It may be arrogant to say "no"But it's very difficult to think how you could improve the idea, it's tapping the laws of physics after all. If there is an improvement in the PoW concept, it's hard to see how using energy in a exponentially iterative compounding way would not be the basis, but maybe there is a mathematical idea that can provide the same properties. Ten years later, still no-one has come up with any challenger, despite some interesting efforts.
let's not forget though, most people dismissed private and decentralised money concepts, both before Bitcoin
and/ after Bitcoin (including me, it took a few months thinking it over before I realized Bitcoin was for real). And some are still dismissing it now!
Bitcoin proved, and still does, that alot of people just aren't imaginative enough to create or even understand new ideas
I'm talking about it also from an economic standpoint. It's the costs that's keeping the miners cooperative, and protective of their own interests and the whole network's interests. Remove the costs, then the incentives will change.
I believe that what some people say is "wasteful", might be the most important discovery of the Bitcoin-breakthrough.