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I speak Esperanto fluently, and I really wish it could replace English as a standard communication language. But I see it as a coordination problem that is almost impossible to solve.
Learning English as an international language seems like an insane waste of resources. Why not use a language you could learn 10x faster? But the trick is that the costs are not same for everyone. Specifically, for native English speakers, Esperanto would be more costly than simply using the language they already speak fluently. And because the international language is chosen by people who have most economical power, of course their preferences are going to have greater impact. (And the same thing would happen if e.g. 20 years later English is replaced by Chinese. Then again, everyone except for Chinese would have a reason to prefer Esperanto, but the Chinese wouldn't care, so the rest of the world would have to learn Chinese.)
Even a hypothetical situation where e.g. four languages with most economical power would be perfectly balanced, wouldn't necessarily mean that people would adopt Esperanto (or any other neutral language). Most speakers of these four languages would have little to gain by learning another language, so they wouldn't bother. And for the speakers of smaller languages it would be more profitable to learn one of the four languages (the specific choice depending on their geographical and political situation).
Essentially, most people don't even want to communicate internationally. They mostly learn a foreign language if they believe it will help their careers. Which usually means they learn a language of an economically more powerful group. But that means that the other side doesn't have an incentive to learn a foreign language. The few hobbyists don't have enough purchasing power to matter on the large scale.
It would have to be a completely fragmented world, where almost every city would speak a different language, that would create a strong need for a neutral language. But after the invention of mass media, such situation is not going to happen.
I agree with all this (except that I happen not to be an Esperanto speaker myself) except for this:
I am sure Esperanto is easier to learn than English. I do not believe it is 10x easier in any useful sense. Were you exaggerating for effect, or was that a serious claim, and in the latter case could you point me at some evidence?