I'm not even talking about the gold or silver standard.
People could buy and trade even before there was a gold standard.
Even the value placed on gold and silver fluctuated.
Doesn't matter if you use a hunk of gold or the "thin air" money we use today ...... it all has a value attached to it (ie. can purchase items and services).
As far as having gold, what need does anyone really have for gold in their everyday living?
Of all the metals I've used in my lifetime, I cannot think of a single instance when I ever thought "I need gold to get this done".
But someone decided to place a great value on something I have never really needed.
Not that gold has no practical use at all, but few have a need for it in their everyday living.
And now we have a world that covets gold, something the vast majority don't even have a need for.
And now, as you say, we have "thin air" money that the world covets.
Why? Because someone placed a great value on it.
The value of gold, and it has been used for millenia as money, is because it has so many good properties: it is basically non-destructible, it is rare, it can be used in many many manufacturing processes, it is compact and easy to carry in small amounts, etc... meaning it has intrinsic value. It's value is very stable. Back in the days of Rome a man could buy a full set of good quality clothes--toga, shoes, belt/sash--for an ounce of gold. Today you can buy a good quality suit, shirt, belt, and a pair of shoes for an ounce of gold. So tell me how gold has changed in value over 2000 years.
It's true that the price of gold coinage has had a percieved fluctuation in value, but the underlying value hasn't changed. The perception is due to manipulation of the amount of gold in minted coins. That's artificial in nature. Roman emporers did it as Rome declined. They added base metals of much lesser value to their coins. That was their form of inflation as sources of income vanished.
What you see today as variation in gold prices is actually the variation in fiat currency. The price of gold isn't varying, the value of the fiat currency is declining, therefore the number of dollars need to buy gold goes up. The price of gold has been being manipulated in the last couple of decades like it was never possible to do before. How? There is what is known in financial circles as "paper gold". It is sold on commodity markets as GLD. When someone buys it they don't actually get real gold. They get a piece of paper that says you can get so much gold. But, there is so much of this in circulation that any honest financial analyst will tell you that you will never get your physical gold. There aren't large enough stockpiles of gold to cover it. The central banks, not wanting people to know exactly how valueless their paper money really is manipulate the price of gold by selling billions of dollars of this GLD paper on the commodity markets on a fairly regular basis. These selling sprees depress the price of real gold for there are enough people who don't realize that this paper gold is a scam so when the price goes down from the massive selloffs of paper gold they buy it. Thus the price of gold is seen to fluctuate. But it isn't. It's the currency around it that is fluctuating in value.
Percieved value is not real value. You need to understand that. Gold and silver have real value because of what a person can do with them. Gold and silver are used in many manufacturing processes. The are converted into jewelry, dining ware, etc.... If they melt in a fire the value isn't gone. Gold is still gold and silver is still silver. If paper money burns what is left? Nothing. The percieved value is simply gone.
I've studied this for a long time now. I started out with your point of view. I changed my point of view because of coming to understand economics after studying it for more than a decade. The media, bankers, and government have sold the US public a bill of goods. We, as a people, are woefully ignorant on economic issues, and we are told one economic fallacy after another to keep us ignorant. Why? Because if we, as a people, understood what is really going on we would rise in rebellion against the powers that be.
I'll give you a link to a book on money and how governments and bankers manipulate it. It's a free book that shows exactly how money works, what it is, how it is manipulated, how inflation works, etc... in layman's terms. I hope you will take the time to read it as it is a good starting point for understanding financial issues. The title of the book is Honest Money. It speaks to money from the Christian perspective and uses Biblical principles throughout.
https://mises.org/library/honest-money
I read this book years ago and it has helped me immensely in my understanding of economic issues. Honest money is something the US hasn't seen in more than 100 years.