Yeah, Gold doesn't go up, rather it's currencies that go down in value so you need more tokens of a currency to buy the same amount of Gold.

It's mainly a protection against large economic upheaval, which is why I called it a "savings protection strategy". Gold bought at the 1980 peak (the worst possible point since the end of the Gold Standard) is right now worth 8x more nominally in USD, though only about 2x if you discount inflation (as 1$ from 1980 is $3.93 in today's money).

I suspect that what you thing is "long term" is not the same as what I think as "long term".

More broadly, Gold's long term ROI depends on which currency you're comparing it with - it tends to be amazing in currencies like the Rupee because India's policies are shit and the currency devaluates a lot, less so in currencies like the US Dollar or the Deutsche Mark/Euro. This is why it tends to be a traditional strategy in poorer countries which traditionally had more unstable economies, like India and China.

I myself bough gold near the local maximum in 2012 only to see its value stagnate for almost a decade (see graphic), so I just sat on it and now it's worth almost 4.5x as much in nominal terms in the currency I bought it with (British Pounds) because, IMHO, the structural problems of the Economy and Financial system that led to the 2008 Crash were never actually solved by Central Banks and Governments in the West, plus there are a whole lot of related Social and Societal problems making the societies themselves less stable (which is why, Britain had Brexit and the US has Trump).

Gold is a punt on the instability of the current Economic and Financial structures in the West and on the ineptitude and even corruption of its politicians, as well as the expected upheavals from the transition from the Era Of America to the Era Of China, and it's one I'm doing with an horizon of decades.

It can easilly be beaten by active trading strategies, but so far for me has worked fine as just a way to park my savings, kinda like in the old days - from the 40s to to maybe the 80s - buying stocks from large well established companies (say, GE) and getting a stead income from it in the form of dividends was a good way to park savings.