you don’t want bitcoins to be generated forever because they would constantly be depreciating in value

That's not the behavior you want if you think people should use Bitcoin as a currency. You almost never want your currency to increase in value compared to the cost of goods and services. Because this means you're in deflation. Think about it: If all you need to do to get a positive return is leave your money parked in an account doing nothing with zero risk, you have much less reason to invest in actually productive activities where you have a chance of losing money. With deflation, it makes sense to delay all your purchases because everything will be cheaper the longer you wait. Under capitalism, this is a terrible situation. It gets even worse when you consider that anyone who owes money has to pay it back with increasingly expensive money. This is why deflation like what happened in the Great Depression or Japan in the 90s is so crushingly awful. An appreciating currency is about as great as a pail of spit but you rarely hear this from Bitcoin enthusiasts. Don't get me wrong, some people benefit. People who already have huge piles of currency they have no intention of using.

Here's another downside. If Bitcoins can't be generated forever, that means that even if the population increases and the economy grows, the amount of currency in circulation remains the same. More people chasing the same amount of currency in existence. This is also very deflationary. The gold standard suffers from the same problem, which is why it failed so badly no one uses it anymore. You don't want your economy to be straitjacketed by tying it to some weird asset whose size / volume is controlled by something weird like the number of gold mines on your planet.

That said, I once had a brief discussion about this with a Bitcoin fan and he told me Bitcoin actually has a mechanism built in which lets them increase the max number of Bitcoins allowed to exist. This would ... partially... address the problem. (Who decides when to activate the mechanism? Answer: People who have tons of Bitcoin already and don't want to lower is value.) Anyway, Bitcoin is just software which can ultimately be changed whenever people decide to do it. Anyway, our existing money system does this already, much better.

If Bitcoin routinely increases in value, it can only function as an asset like Jackson Pollack paintings or sports memorabilia or something. But we all know Bitcoin is highly volatile in reality, so it fails on that level too. Basically, Bitcoin is useful only for engaging in crime or tax evasion. Plus, it isn't truly anonymous (every transaction can be traced by design) so scratch out that supposed advantage as well.