Esperanto does change, in that new items of vocabulary are introduced from time to time. For example, 'mojosa', the word for 'cool' is only about thirty years old.
No practical uses! What! Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala (loo it up!), Yerevan and Milan in this planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it as a very useful and practical way to overcome language barriers.
Take an unguided wander around the net. You wil find political stuff, religious stuff, scientific stuff - all in Esperanto.
The problem would be to get the thousand brains to agree.Now thousands and thousands of brains are applied every day to stretching anbd applying Esperanto to all aspects of life. I have found Esperanto of a lot of use when travelling on my own, to get my bearings within a country. Esperanto may not be perfect, but I've used it successfully in Africa, South America and Europe, and it does the job, serving as a unique common language on my travels in, for example, Armenia and Bulgaria.
Esperanto speakers are highly organised. There is a Jarlibro (Yearbook) published annually giving access to a network of local representatives. These people, scattered all over the world and act as 'consuls', providing help and information, and passing on the visitor from another country to his/her contacts. Esperanto does have an Academy, but it is the people who decide in practice.
Yesterday (21 October 2017) I chaired a gathering of Esperanto speakers in Conwy, north Wales, UK. Present were speakers of Welsh, Tagalog, Slovene, Estonian, Brazilian Portuguese and maybe a few others besides English. We had Esperantyo as our common language. I have spoken Esperanto for precisely fifty years, and throught that time I have seen Esperanto as an aŭiliary language (sorry, my keyboard has just gone into Esperanto mode!), i.e. a language which values our native tongues while enabling trouble-free communication. I speak Welsh, French and German, by the way, and have an ability to bluff my way in a few more languages. Life is too short to learn them all. Keep on fighting for your smaller languages. There is plenty of room in the world for them - and for Esperanto.
You suggest that the choice is between taking Esperanto seriously as a proposal for a world auxiliary language or take it as a hobby. My experience relates to neither of those. I see Esperanto as a remarkable success story, by far the most successful auxiliary language. It has survived wars and revolutions and economic crises and continues to attract people to learn and speak it. Over 400,000 people have signed up to the Duolingo Esperanto course in the last year. Esperanto works. I’ve used it in about seventeen countries over recent years. I recommend it to anyone, as a way of making friendly local contacts in other countries. English is not enough! I’ve made friends around the world through Esperanto that I would never have been able to communicate with otherwise. And then there’s the Pasporta Servo, which provides free lodging and local information to Esperanto-speaking travellers in over 90 countries. Over recent years I have had guided tours of Berlin, Douala and Milan in this planned language. I have discussed philosophy with a Slovene poet, humour on television with a Bulgarian TV producer. I’ve discussed what life was like in East Berlin before the wall came down and in Armenia when it was a Soviet republic, how to cook perfect spaghetti, the advantages and disadvantages of monarchy, and so on. I recommend it as a very practical way to overcome language barriers.
I will never learn more than the basics in Armenian or Slovene or Finnish, but I make use of Esperanto to get to know about the history, economy and the legal systems of countries I visit.