To be honest, the creation of alternate cryptocurrency brought more good than harm and I consider that the competition was not as bad as people thought would be. Like you mentioned, this brought about public awareness and interest to the extent of knowing that there exists a currency that is fully decentralized aka "financial freedom."

I doubt that there was any competition at all when ETH and other famous altcoins were made. The basis would always be the price and liquidity in the market. Moreover, the creation of altcoins further boosted the price of BTC in the market which had more positive impact than negative.