The fact that none of the popular crypto projects have this mechanism just goes to show that nobody was thinking all that deep about the human level of it.
Even if said coin existed, it wouldn't guarantee privacy, because information about transactions can be recorded or observed off-chain, and that information can be compromised.
I strongly agree. If I have a choice between paying in cash or in a cryptocurrency, I would choose cash nearly every time (with a few exceptions).
Zcash is the ongoing project based on Zerocash, started in large part by those same researchers, but with funded teams of engineers continuously iterating on the protocol and implementations.
> Several crypto projects were in their own right political statements about taking back control and decentralizing institutions
If these projects are about taking back control, why shouldn't I as a user have the agency to only accept transactions I approve?
What if someone dusts you NFTs with abusive imagery on IPFS linked to them? Or spam/scam tokens with funny smart contracts that trick you into doing something you don't want to do when you visit their project page?
It ought to have been an obvious feature from the beginning. Spam and public addresses have gone together since forever.
Ignoring that specific feature, if you did get money sent to your traditional bank account, you can always contact your bank and tell them you don't know what it is to avoid any trouble. This is not possible with Ethereum.