I just posted a inflation adjusted graph with a 36 year gold crash (40 years to return to the peak) and 21 year gold crash (still hasn't quite returned to the peak 44 years later). Technically those crashes were temporary. But if that happened when you need the money, waiting 40+ years just to return to your starting price is an awful thing to consider.
While gold has some actual use in manufacturing, many stocks ARE actual manufacturing companies.
Inflation in itself is a huge issue, it basically means the dollar is being devalued more and more every year. It used to be backed by gold back in the day and inflation was not as bad, but now it's backed by nothing and they just keep printing as much as they want. Every time they do that it's devalued.
TBH I would have figured silver would be going up more in past few years with EVs and solar being more popular but I guess they don't necessarily use that much of it.
Either way it's always good to diversify between virtual assets and physical. I have a bit of silver, cash, stocks, index funds, bank managed savings, pension plan at work, ESP etc. Not everything is necessarily an investment and simply savings. That's how I see the silver, it's more of a way to save money securely long term with the chance that it could go up by then. The cash is more for shorter term emergency. It's value goes down every year so not really good to have too much of it.