"just because not everyone is going to do it means nothing for your argument"

Yes, it does mean something for my argument. The bar for using LN privately is substantially higher than Monero = less users doing it that way = smaller anonymity set. Look at LN custodial and LSP stats. Virtually everyone is using it this way.

Great you're the 1% of LN users that will be super private in their tiny anon set, congrats

"doesn't everyone already custody a lot of money with banks right now?..."

Irrelevant. Nothing to do with Lightning.

"you can have ecash mints which are also similar in that it's between you and the mint"

Didn't you just say something "no permission required"? Then you immediately bring up ecash. That's in fact what you're doing with ecash to redeem tokens and leave a mint. But even ignoring that having many mints fracture up the anonymity. Its further fractured within each mint itself since each mint has denominated value "buckets" (1,2,4,8,16, etc) The larger token value, the smaller your anonymity set.

Oh yea and public mints are easy targets for money transmitter laws bureaucrats.

Solved using anonymous mint? Welcome to easy rugville

What will your argument be once Monero enables L2s with FCMP++?

Encrypted chain + L2 >>> Transparent chain + L2

Privacy without data leak liabilities of the basechain and actually able to practically enforce it on the basechain for smaller amounts. Bitcoin fees *must* rise over time if you think everyone is going to be using it. The threshold to practically exit will keep rising with it.