It hasn't failed at not being controlled by people which fiat currencies have failed completely. Do you control the inflation rate? Do you control how much currency is being minted? And tons of other things.
Exchanges are essentially banks. They offer bitcoin loans, essentially creating new coins out of nowhere. Fixed money supply is utterly powerless before the inflationary power of debt.
If you let people manage your coins in their wallet, they can pretend there's more of them, but they can't actually trade that many
Bitcoin has proven to be a worthless dollar inflation hedge. It’s more correlated to the stock market than any real dollar.
Agree on the mechanics. Equities are a classic inflation hedge. But the reality is that if three people, in the last year, attempted an inflation hedge, one with TIPs or Series I bonds; one with equities; and one with Bitcoin, the last gained little over the middle. Both likely lost value relative to the first.
If your inflation hedge loses value during inflation because the Fed will raise interest rates because of inflation, yes, there were external factors at play, but no, they’re not to blame, you hedged badly.
You don't control any of that with bitcoin.
If you're living in a democracy, you do get a say in those things or at least in selecting the people who decide those things, along with all the other voters.