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Surely some folks do not know the difference, and there is a lot of informational sources, whether mainstream media or otherwise that talk in such ambiguities in there failing to specify what they are talking about. It seems better to be way more specific in the way that we speak, and even frequently people are not dumb, but they still might not have spent too many hours looking into bitcoin enough in order to recognize ways that bitcoin differs from various shitcoins, even though they might know that bitcoin is the oldest or that bitcoin has the largest market cap, but they still might not know very much beyond some of the superficial kinds of talking points that are sometimes misleadingly repeated.
In relative terms, the number of people interested in the technology compared to the number of people interested in speculation only has tremendously decreased over the years. I remember having a lot of talks in the early days and of course price was a topic, but it was more about all the other stuff, like how to set up mining operations, how to store keys, how to contribute to the code, pulling an all nighter philosophizing about its impact on society, and so much more. It is not like that anymore.
90% of the time when I am approached they either say "can this thing called bitcoin still make me rich" or "do you still believe in cryptocurrencies" (when it has had red days) or "wow bitcoin is now so expensive, but what about this thing called X".
I hardly ever get approached by someone saying that he or she has looked into it and found bitcoin to be very enticing for reason A, B and C. It's not the case anymore and sometimes I miss those times because there is still so much to be discussed that is so exciting about it. If it wasn't exciting anymore, I would lose hope for bitcoin, but from the first day I found out about it, I had a feeling that this is going to be relevant in one way or another. This did not prevent me from making mistakes along the way when it comes to selling, but to save my honor, it wasn't all mistakes, but sometimes more of a necessity due to changed circumstances in life.
But yes, you can see it in this thread and I understand the title that it is about DIPS and about HODLING, which is totally fine. But the tone in most posts is very price focused and when people are price focused, they don't care about the name of the thing that makes them money or loses them money. I agree with you that the distinction must be made and I suggest everyone to google alt coin graveyard and reserve a spot for the shitcoin they have now their eyes on hoping it makes them rich.
It is very dangerous to respond with the term "cryptocurrencies" because if someone asks you whether you believe in then and you answer "yes I believe in cryptocurrencies", that person might go home and think it doesn't matter which one to pick... That is my experience and it has gotten worse whereas it was already bad when the flood of shitcoins started a little bit more than a decade ago.