Could anyone explain to me why there's too much fuss about anon coins and how would ordinary users benefit from this feature?
Say, someone wants to buy 2nd hand ps4 from someone. Why would he be so eager to use cryptos with anon feature and hide his transactions?
If you don't feel that privacy is important, I invite you to publish ALL of your UNEDITED credit card and bank statements, ever, on the Internet.
No? Now consider someone who actually has wealth. Suppose you have a billion dollars in spare change (after the last multinational corp you bought) and a daughter in elementary school. Do you want every Corsican and Byelorussian ex patriate within 500km to be able to determine just how large a ransom to ask for, when they leave her left hand in your mailbox?
Suppose instead that you are a middle-level cadre running a department in a satellite city of Chongqing. Making arrangements for entrepreneurs to build the New China has provided you with a substantial quantity of yuan that you need to move to Cambridge, for Harvard tuition, a boxster and a nice flat. BoC is off the table. Bitcoin leaves a trail similar to the heat trail a satellite sees when watching a nuclear submarine transit the pacific: A big red arrow pointing directly to your location.
These are not merely "first world problems".
No one is asking you to use monero if it doesn't serve your interests. But I do claim that it is a crucial protection from totalitarian control of your political and religious activism, and can be used to deny ANYONE who may wish to seize your wealth the information necessary to do so. The tech to make this easy enough to use so that those who are motivated, but not technically exceptional, can do so, is not present. But Monero puts it in reach.
We live in a world of increasing risks. Transactional privacy enables you to manage many important risks in useful ways. The captive coopted mass of circus-goers will not fret about this, as they butter the bread for their grilled government cheese sandwiches. Those who have something which they consider their own, something to protect, will understand this.
Governments control the cheese consumers. But those who control the governments have something to protect.
Ok, good answer. But as of now, I still don't feel the need for anon coins. Maybe someday when cryptos are widely used all over the world. That's when I'd feel safe converting all my wealth to crypto and would need such features.