The concept of "more affordable" evades me in this case. What is more affordable about Ripple ? I buy Bitcoin for $500 - but hey, I shoulda bought Ripple for $500 bcuz that's more affordable ? 
I have however noticed that the principle of percentages doesn't come naturally to all humans, so maybe that explains the mysterious effect.  So maybe we shouldn't call such people newcomers but rather, "morons" ?

 I don't see  any problem with BTC, really - I have never used it for a transaction at all - for example, only a moron would buy it at coinbase and then send it elsewhere or even to a wallet, with the exception of extreme hodlers. What I like about BTC is the 21 million limit, and the symbolism. It is unique, and it doesn't care to be used for transaction like cheap copper.

There was a banking expert" on TV yesterday who actually opined that Bitcoin was doomed to "fail" because "what if the 21 million cons are gone ? There will be no more supply, and it will be worthless!"
You see ?  Logic is dead, you can tell morons anything these days and they will not see the contradiction.
That's why they are morons. They problem is that so many of them are in the market these days, and that makes the market dangerous. Morons need banks to do their thinking for them.

If you look at the end of Year dip in bitcoin (and most others), that was just a normal correction. The memory is just fresh, and the human primate is an impressionable ape. Look at the chart for 8 months back on the daily scale. You will find that this ALWAYS happens. It rises and keeps rising at a certain angle for about six weeks, then it starts falling again for awhile (for about three weeks), then it rises again.

Ripple ? Oh, Ripple. Ripple can grow, why not. Totally different thing, nothing to do with bitcoin at all. No overlap here. None except that th market has limited capital, and is now largely composed of morons.
They will be weeded out by the volatility, the faster the better ;)
So, should we hodl Bitcoin and Ripple and maybe some ETH and be done with it ?

There's more competition for Ripple than there is for bitcoin, actually. For example, there's XLM (Stellar Lumens), made by the Ripple originators.
It's not being controlled by them however, as Ripple is.
And there's others. So I would think that Ripple is in danger at least as much as Bitcoin is.
Bitcoin is a store of value. Will it rise forever ? Does gold rise forever ?
Coins will rise as long as people flood in, buying them, and that will happen as long as only a minority IS actually in. This will eventually stop, no idea if before 2020 or after.