Most people on earth don't have the ability to just invest in traditional commodity markets as a hedge.

Most people on earth DO have a mobile device, which grants them permissionless and censorship resistant access to the bitcoin network. This access allows for an escape hatch against abusive regimes who debase their country's fiat currency.

So I take it you are not willing to accept bitcoin for free since it's not "real and economically useful"?

Commodities don't have a fixed supply, they are not transportable, you can't actually own them. You can't verify them. You can't transact them easily.

Real and economically useful, bitcoin or commodities. which is which?

You realize what that would entail? Imagine a horde of wallstreetbets people buying huge amounts of dry wheat, causing the price to go through the roof and/or wheat becoming unavailable in some areas. Or, when they sell, a bunch of farmers' revenues dropping and making them go bankrupt. You really want that? Isn't it better if the chaos is contained to goods that aren't really important?

Oh, and depend on the GOVERNMENT to protect my commodities contracts with fiat courts of law, or my physical commodities with their jackbooted thugs?

Harder to store, transfer, many commodities are perishable, bulky, heavy, etc.

Gold is (relatively) easy to store, transfer, hard to obtain, really limited supply -- the qualities that make commodity good money. Uselessness of gold is actually useful here -- transactions with it does not distort markets. Imagine if we used coffee beans as "gold" -- then changes in monetary velocity would impact consumers, who would be forced to stash it.

Would it be better if people poured loads of money into something useful as a speculative investment? Imagine if the price of, say, steel went up by a huge amount due to people hedging against currency. Or housing—I hear this has actually happened.