I also think demo accounts can be very useful for practicing trading and getting used to a platform. Later they are useful for 'what if' scenarios when trading live .. like what would happen if I opened 4 positions on this trade and scaled out? If you keep good records, demo accounts can be highly useful both before and during active trading. And of course they are a great place to go & lick your wounds if you have had a day or two of seemingly constant wrong decisions
You can continue practice trading while analyzing what you did wrong...
I'm in the camp of those who consider demo accounts highly useful. However one should not go from a demo account to a full sized account & trading .. baby step out of it with a small account of real money and work up from there. IMHO
