Ether has no way getting behind bitcoin and as we have seen a phase of higher Gas feed but Ether has overcome all those obstacles and now New Era of Ether 2.0 will boost immensnly underpriced Ethereum prices. Decentralized Financing and uniswap has provided big boost to Ether mass adoption and only problem Ether has faced over years is the speed and delay in the transaction but Ether2.0 will surely is the one off solution of all problems traders have faced upto now.
As long as competion or substitutes are concerned, which had their chance while there was Ether transaction cost was at all time high last month & that is understood as ether never faced with millions of transactions happens overa single time period. While mainnet and Tron network show signs of substituting Ethet Network and everyone consider EOS will be the next substitute but There was no way they come even close to what ether has shown over extended time period.