i see you read my post and yes... i agree based on experiences 'in-person' like the one above.

so what do we do about it? civil disobedience? Coinjoins? More privacy protocols? Embrace non-kyc? Monero?????

The entire point of having bitcoin... is to one day exchange it for something. If it's only to hodl forever then it might as well be lost/thrown into the ocean and at the bottom of the sea... gone.

Eventually, at some point, Bitcoin is to be exchanged for goods and services directly. If that good or service is good conversations and ideas... and some memes on Stacker then... great. Perfect.

If it's a beer and some wings or a cheeseburger, OK. Or maybe something bigger and larger great but exchange is the heart and soul of money and exchange for goods and services... is eventually the entire point.

And the necessity to go back and forth into/out of 'dollars' to 'exchange' Bitcoin is not right it is a strange perversion imo.

The exchange of Bitcoin for stuff should be direct, full stop. If someone wants to exchange bitcoin for fiat great THAT'S THEIR CHOICE but that should be OPTIONAL. We should be generally able to buy regular day-to-day items with btc... within its technical limitations of course. And just 'spend Bitcoin' period that's the entire point.