I'm not. Why would someone's conlang project be given status alongside something with millions of speakers and centuries of literature?

Because it's easy to learn and very useful as an international language.

Easy to learn? It has gender and number and a lot of inflection which are hardly easy for many of the world's speakers. Pidgin English appears to do a better job at what Esperanto claims to be ideal for.

I’d say Spanish would be a much better fit. Much easier to learn than many other languages. (Another good candidate would be Malaysian.)