Utility and coin market cap are different things, just look at stablecoins or Monero. They are arguably more useful than Bitcoin. Hex is designed to surpass bitcoin, using staking to limit sell pressure. It's all about game theory, not utility.
People buy crypto only to see their number go up, even when they claim it's utility/technology/revolution etc...
As much as I agree with you about people caring more about numbers going up, utility also plays an important role for numbers to go up except that project is design only for pump and dump,
Nowadays people are more into project with utility which is the driving force of the price.