We need the speculators to crash the exchanges, so that upgrades can be made, clog the networks - so we know how to scale efficiently. Think of the profiteers and speculators are essentially battle testing the entire sphere as a whole. If you look deep, you'll find that even btc gets is value from two avenues (i) utility and (ii) speculation.
I entirely agree with you. The profits are also bringing in a lot of new money that is funding crypto projects.
But nonetheless, I find it depressing to see that very few try to understand Blockchain technology and to understand how disruptive it is.