I personally do not think that this is the beginning of the end for Ethereum. Ethereum has had its ups and down exactly like bitcoin which is doing fine even after disasters like Mt. Gox. I argue that all early investors in The DAO should have been aware of the risk they were taking. Whether or not there will be a hard fork consensus will decide. If it turns out that there will not be a fork and the price goes down I will just buy more.

After all I think we have learned a lot after what happened to The DAO. Now there is a lot more research surrounding security and smart contracts. Only time will let us know what happens buy in my eyes what matter is the technology behind Ethereum and not whether we fork or not.