Everyone can appreciate a photo of an astronaut on a horse.
Few can grasp the concept and significance of a store of value. Let alone a DAO.
It's the same reason why Harry Potter is more popular than Einstein's "On the electrodynamics of moving bodies" in which he came up with the theory of relativity.
When others talk about something we don't understand, we tend to get angry and dismissive. Like boys in elementary school who think girls are stupid. Because they can't figure out why they act the way they do. So on top of the lower popularity, we also get the hate towards crypto.
The way I see it, we are taught from a young age to fear finance and money. We're told that we need to had it to someone else to store safely (banks). We're told that we need someone else to invest it for us for our future (401k). We're told that our government is responsible for protecting us (military and taxes).
As a result, we constantly hand off the responsibility to others and we don't make the effort to learn and understand it ourselves. We get angry and dismissive when we don't want to talk about something we are fearful of.
Of course, the people who take the different approach, of diving into understand it, are the ones who are benefiting the most from it. Those are the wealthy people on Wall Street. The bankers. The CEOs. The people who keep pushing the fear.
AI isn't about money or finance, it is about knowledge.
When Neha Narula said (roughly) crypto is speedrunning the entire history of traditional finance and repeating the same mistakes she was pointing out the arrogance and (possibly willful) ignorance of many crypto promoters. Take that and add on justifiable anger at proof-of-work schemes during a developing climate crisis and much of the dismissive attitude and hate is well earned.