There is this popular myth in the altcoin space that "forks" are inherently bad, which follows from the (correct) observation that most if not all bitcoin "forks" have been done as pump-and-dump scams.

But the underlying premise is false. If you understand the history of open source software, forks are both intended and desirable, and even necessary to maintain a balance of power between developers and the wider community. Specifically when the original developer goes in a direction the wider community does not support, then other developers are able to fork, and the community is able to move its support from the original to the fork.

This is exactly what happened with Bytecoin and the premine/ninjamine/whatever, trolling, sock puppet accounts, non-transparent history and developers, etc.

This kind of shady behavior was not supported or accepted by the community which is why nearly all support (as measured by hash rate, trading volume, thread views, or any other sensible metric) has shifted to Monero.

Bytecoin could have capitalized on its position as the first cryptonote coin and maintained a leadership position, but they blew it. They have no one to blame but themselves.