The problem with all anon coins is that, in fact, this coins cant be used for anonymization because of very low circulation . Coin should be widespread to be usable in anonymization. It is a prerequisite. And anon coins will not be widespread coz this feature is not needed for most users.
I'm not sure about that. I think most people want some privacy and discreteness about their financial whereabouts. Transparent ledgers such as bitcoin are way, way too transparent. Again, we're not talking about "hiding from the NSA". We're talking about Joe not finding out I gave some money to Mary.
In fact the problem of too small an anonymity set solves itself: from the moment the economy is closed, it is also large enough for the anonymity set to be big enough. A prerequisite for this is that the anonymity feature is compulsory. This is what I don't like about zcash (amongst others).
If Joe, the bar keeper, and Mary, my friend, are coin users, that means that the user base is big enough to be anonymous enough so that my privacy is protected, and that Joe doesn't immediately see that the money he paid me for me repairing the toilets in his bar, was also the birthday present for Mary. Even with an anonymity set of a few thousand users, that's good enough.
Anonymization is not the right feature to be used as growth driver. So it is closed circle.
So , I'm afraid that it will be not monero for "... you work and get crypto ; you spend with your crypto, and your employer obtains crypto..."
I don't know. IF EVER I were to accept any crypto so that I work for it and can spend it, for sure it would have to be anonymous, style monero, zcash, dash or whatever, or I wouldn't even consider using it that way. No way that the people that pay me, and the people I spend money on, can find out what I did, where I got the money from, and where I spent it. Like now, people don't know this, and that's what I want.
I would never use a crypto like bitcoin the way I like to use fiat. It has way to little privacy.
(and again, I'm not talking about doing evil things)