That's an excellent analogy. I think more people would like crypto currencies if they really thought through how absurd fiat currencies are. A blockchain is fundamentally a very large piece of code that acts with some degree of consistency, and can't be controlled centrally (generally). That consistency and reliability is very very valuable. Fiat currencies operate in somewhat of a similar way, because their value is defined by the industry of their respective country, but the difference is the characteristics of fiat such as supply are defined by bureaucrats not an algorithm.
RE: ASICs and the price drops are killing GPU mining