What is Ether Backed by is the wrong first question

I'm lately seeing a lot of 'what is crypto backed by?' We get it here in this sub, but here is a short explanation that might help you guys answer this if people ask you.

For Eth, you can't understand 'what is it backed by' until you first ask the better question of 'what IS Eth?'

Eth is the ABILITY to publish any information such that:

1. Everyone in the world can see it with 0 downtime.
2. No one in the world can change it, except according to the rules you set. (ie, everyone plays by the same rules)
3. No one in the world can stop any other person or protocol from interacting with it, according to your rules.

Eth is also the ability to interact with the information anyone else has published according to the rules they have set.

Some of the information that people have used so far include ownership of collectables, tokens which denote ownership in a protocol, governing or distribution rights of businesses, exchanges of various tokens, provably fair gambling, overcollateralized loans, games, identity management, proving authenticity of news information or videos, provenance of food, low overhead insurance, prediction markets, funding new businesses, organizations that operate based on token voting, public good funding with matching funds based on number of donors rather than amounts, cross-border remittances, writing a memorial to the Chinese Coronavirus whistle-blower doctor that China couldn't remove, etc.

Humanity has only barely received this power - there will be others.

Ether is what you need to pay to interact with the Ethereum network, so ether is backed by the network itself - millions of dollars of mining equipment, billions of dollars staked, advanced cryptography, a strong and growing community, thousands of nodes around the world, bright, enthusiastic well funded engineers, etc.