I feel like Monero is in a tough spot. Not enough network effect to compete with Bitcoin, and new scaling layers like Arc and Lightning actively building out to provide privacy.
Moreover, my greater sense is that the nuts and bolts of crypto is not an HN strong suit. It usually brings out religious-type arguments with little sense of balance. <sigh>
- The UX is horrible.
- To be user friendly, you need to reintroduce trust into the system, defeating the point.
- It's still more expensive to lock up Bitcoin in Lightning than to use Monero.
- The privacy of Lightning is poor compared to Monero.
The only thing Monero lacks compared to Bitcoin is the amount of speculative network effect it has, which is indeed what's holding back Monero's popularity.