a) a blockchain where it's cheaper to transact, but all the users on that network believed themselves to be in a position where they could tell me what I could or couldn't do,
or
b) a blockchain where it's a little more expensive, but all the users on that network had total respect for permissionless freedom,
Then sign me up for b)
Lucky for us there are more choices than your two. Like a third option:
c) A blockchain where we allow monetary transfers to be recorded on and reject malicious transactions trying to abuse it as cloud storage. Like when we reject any transaction containing more than 1 OP_RETURN output (for many years).
And up until the malicious Ordinals Attack everyone had signed up for option c and I don't see any indication of people having changed their minds.
That was mainly just an example to explain my stance and the way in which I'm approaching this issue. Obviously the situation is more nuanced than that in practice.
I submit that the best way to deter this inscription/ordinal stuff is to call it out for what it is. Unscrupulous hucksters selling crap to unwitting fools. The less people buy this junk, the faster the sellers run out of money.