Andreas gave a talk a long time ago about this. Title something about bubble boy and sewer rats, if you want to find it. His argument is that Bitcoin's openness means it is the most battle-tested. All of its "flaws" are out in the open for anyone to exploit, to enormous financial gain.

It also makes it "look" like a clean and safe thing that governments can regulate. This means it doesn't get removed from exchanges like Monero does. Meanwhile there are private second layer solutions currently and in development for Bitcoin. So it's like freedom tech wolf in regulator-friendly sheep's clothing.

I do wonder about the "hotspots" argument you make. It really depends on how incentivized people are to comply with regulations versus just changing jurisdiction. But when it comes to censorship, I just can't imagine that there will be *no* node in the world that will validate any given transaction.