Why would anon even be something you want if you want Bitcoin to be mass adopted?
wow. You're kidding right? Can you suggest a _single_ widely adopted financial system in the history of the modern world which made everyone's transactions and 'balances' mandatorily public?
Imagine you collect a paycheck in Bitcoin— when you get a raise, do you want your landlord increasing your rent? "I know you're good for it."
Imagine you resell a product you paid for in Bitcoin and hear from your customers "I know you paid less for it, I want a better price!" or from your suppliers "We want a bigger share, we know you're selling these items for top dollar.".
Do you want your competitors knowing what your sales figures are, what products you're selling, and to which customers you're selling them to?
Do you want your employer potentially questioning the causes you donate to?— or just the risk that they _might_ question them, forcing you to self censor your actions for fear of losing your job, "It's just not working out".
Should the barista at the coffee shop know your bitcoin-net-worth or your lack thereof? Or the mugger they pass the info off to know that you're the ideal person to kidnap? Should loan-sharks know when you're tight on funds and most likely to take a predatory loan or participate in some long shot investment gamble?
Should your in-laws know you're paying for contraception while they're clamoring for grandchildren, or what kind of porn you like?
Should people in your community know what you're paying for your child's education— funds you could be instead spending supporting the community garden?
Should bidders for a deal know what your prices were— undermining the inherent motivation to be honest in auctions which depends on keeping some information secret?
Good fences make good neighbors and financial transactions frequently reveal a bit about our most intimate secrets and values. Being able to answer "it's none of your business" when it really isn't is what frees people from feeling they have to impose their values on everyone else and frees people from everyone else constantly imposing their values on them for all things.
Transparency is an essential tool in our social tool-belt too— but like all things it must be used in an intelligent and controlled manner. Sunlight can be a disinfectant but it can also cause skin-cancer.
In a world where massive power asymmetries exists having control over your private information is one of the few re-balancing forces which are theoretically available to everyone... and this applies in a multitude of business and personal contexts far more numerous than what I've listed here, sometimes in gross ways and sometimes subtle ways. In some sense a financial transaction underlies every interaction we make with another person— though sometimes the scarce assets exchanged don't include money— sometimes we trade with less formal systems like reputation, trust, future obligation, etc instead of or in addition to money... but such trades are always happening, and without some privacy in them we can have privacy in nothing. (Some people hope that Bitcoin, or Bitcoin inspired systems might help create formalized versions of some of these non-monetary value exchanges in the future too… hopefully not while also undermining their privacy.)
Used in a poor way (as some wallets have enshrined and some businesses seem to be promoting) Bitcoin is one of the least private transaction and value systems ever created. I'm hopeful for the human-welfare-enhancing possibilities that Bitcoin could create in the future, but if it goes a route that further erodes the privacy we have in our interpersonal interactions then it could instead fuel a terrible dystopia.
There are also some Bitcoin specific risks— In Bitcoin our goal is to build a system of exchange which minimizes the need for trust... but we still must trust miners to establish the ordering of transactions. As a result miners have a substantial power to censor, but privacy undermines that risk— so long as we have enough of it. Anything that creates an incentive to control mining— e.g. to achieve censorship goals— risks undermining the whole system, so we're all better off if the system is more private... even the non-existing hypothetical person that has no need for privacy.
So back to your question— I'd turn it around, if Bitcoin undermines people's privacy how could it possibly be adopted— are people that foolish? And if so, could free society survive the harm such an outcome would create?
