There are many different scenarios of how silver could perform over time. It will depend on what is going on in the world and there is no way to know for sure how that will play out. Due to current world events, I would opine that it looks more likely than not that something(s) could happen that makes PM's become a go to "investment".
One possibility that I believe will eventually play out (I don't know when) is where some financial/banking/monetary disaster(s) occurs which results in people from poor to rich wanting to put money into hard assets. That idea seems impossible as we sit here now with most folks not even wanting to use cash anymore, let alone think in terms that gold and silver equate with wealth/value. However, if we consider what event(s) could happen down the road it appears (to me at least) plausible that there could be a time coming where all types of people decide to put some $$$ into hard assets again. If so, there is not a whole lot of PM's to go around if people all wanted the real metal.
I have read that approximately 700 million ounces of silver are mined each year. The real number might be a bit more or less. Right now 700 million ounces equals $9.8 billion at $14 spot silver. That is not much money when talking about global figures of wealth throughout the world. The US burns through $3.5 Trillion or more per year, just to put $9.8 Billion in perspective. Bill Gates alone is worth $79 Billion or so. I am just saying there is a lot of "money" out there held by people of all walks of life. If some big bad event(s) cause a loss of confidence in paper products, you might see those who still have money left start buying PM's and other hard assets.
Think of all the wealth that is currently in paper products or electronic digits. If there were to be a loss in confidence in these systems, to where would the money go? If there were any of the following bad events to occur, a loss in confidence of non physical assets could happen: a derivatives market blow up- which would spread to other markets quickly, some world government(s) defaults that cause certain currencies to become worthless quickly, global wars (much worse than what we have now) that lead to market instability/upheaval.
We are in precarious times with respect to the "health" of many large and powerful nations, that is if you look at true debt levels vs. spending and entitlements, etc, and in what direction we appear to be heading (making things better vs. making them worse, ie nearing $19 T debt now and heading higher in HUGE amounts recently). This can't go on forever like everything is peachy. Further, we have so many global conflicts/wars that show no end in sight and are getting worse by the day (think Russia vs. Turkey- and all other countries "involved" in that due to their relations with the involved parties), that some event someday will set off a much larger conflagration I believe.
All of these things I mentioned would have, historically, caused PM's to rise. I know things are different today with the sheep not even wanting cash anymore and preferring plastic and computer payments, but the wealthy and the 1%ers are not dumb and if the "event(s)" were bad enough they would move more heavily into traditional hard assets. And if they started moving $$$ into PM's, eventually those down the ladder would want to do so as well, but probably later on and at higher prices.
PS Even without any of the above events taking place, we could over time see PM prices and the whole commodity sector improve due to normal market cycles, but I don't think PM's will reach very high numbers under this scenario like they would should some bad world event(s) be the cause of movement upward.
Just my opinion.
Jim
