It wins by a huge margin on the energy to weight ratio. In scenarios where weight doesn't matter it's dumb, but there is potential in places like air travel where it does make sense.

Batteries are too heavy for many applications (including, arguably, cars).

That doesn't make hydrogen the only solution but it is at least a currently available solution. I posted a link about why the Orkneys (population 23k) are producing hydrogen and switching much of their transport to it: they have so much wind the UK (population 70m) national grid can't take all the power they generate from it.

Hydrogen is useful in a lot of industrial processes. It also maybe win the race for green aviation fuel, but this one is not likely. There is plenty of market for green hydrogen.

There is also absolutely no reason to hype about any of it. Everybody hyping it on the media is trying to make global warming worse.

Industry uses A LOT of Hydrogen and that would increase dramatically if we stopped using fossil fuels as chemical feedstocks. eg. plastics, pharmaceuticals, dyes etc.