Are you saying that bitcoin's users likely number in the tens of thousands at worst then? This sounds like hyperbole.
No I think it probably is somewhere in the hundreds of thousands. Total wallets is around 1.7 million and I'm assuming that most people, like myself, have more than one. I'm not trying to be hyperbolic, but just trying to point out that Bitcoin, even though it is by far the most likely cryptocurrency to succeed long-term, is still tiny in terms of its userbase.
I believe it is the method the market will select, regardless of my perception of fairness. The more I study alt-coins, the less likely it seems to me that any open-source and decentralized crytpocurrency could out-compete bitcoin or a bitcoin spin-off.
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A very credible argument can be made that a new user benefits most strongly by joining the dominant network. The largest network would tend to have the widest acceptance, greatest liquidity, largest market capitalization, and the strongest user base (allowing the new user to benefit as per Metcalfe's Law). If bitcoin tends to appreciate on average at a faster rate than a basket of alt-coins, this only gives more reasons for new users to prefer bitcoin.
I guess this depends on how you define the market. If you limit it to current cryptocurrency users, which overwhelmingly is made up of people who hold at least some Bitcoin, then you are right that probably anything linked to Bitcoin would likely have an automatic built in userbase. What I am trying to say is: what about people who don't even know about Bitcoin now? Why would they have any incentive to join a system that favours a relatively tiny group of what in their view are "early adopters"? (This issue is even more sensitive given the current complaints regarding wealth concentration, the 1% etc. in fiat currency.)