I'm sorry if I offended you, and I do understand your perspective. But we are benefitting from hindsight here. The rise of more efficient, widely-useful languages absolutely can threaten existing ones, as any Occitan, Catalan, Shanghainese, Quechua, etc. speaker can tell you (though maybe not in their ancestral language). I didn't mean to attribute any malice to Esperantists, but I do get why its rapid rise in the early 20th Century alarmed men like Monsieur Hanotaux.

On your second point, I think this is a case where we judge by different standards. It's definitely impressive how much more successful Esperanto has been than other invented languages. But I think Esperantists who nearly got it to be the official language of the League of Nations would be disappointed at how it fell off. I personally find it fascinating, and have studied it myself, but haven't found much occasion to use it.

In any case, I appreciate your thoughts. I know my style and dry humor can come off as derisive to people who feel strongly about an issue, but please know I don't mean to be. Dankon pro lego (hope I got that right)