It wouldn't be surprising. Aside from potentially hindering Bitcoin adaption, privacy feature usually leads to higher TX size or longer verification time. In addition, gmaxwell propose Confidental Transaction back on 2015[1], but it was never added into Bitcoin protocol and added into Monero protocol (as part of RingCT) on 2017.
Monero is cool and has better privacy, but we need something that is easier to implement in Bitcoin protocol, maybe privacy sidechain would work great for this, without increasing TX size.
Privacy sidechain? Liquid network might be what you're looking for since they implement Confidental Transaction. For something easier or lighter on Bitcoin on-chain, MimbleWimble or other form of non-interactive CoinJoin probably are better option than CT.
Edwards Snowden think he's Satoshi Nakamoto, so he has a huge power to make the developers listen to him, while actually he's just an Average Joe in Bitcoin...
I wouldn't call him "Average Joe in Bitcoin" considering his history and expertise in computer security.