Its fundamental to bitcoin, and yes I do. Pointing out bugs in the past is focusing on a strength, not a weakness. If privacy turns out to be necessary in the future, bitcoin can be upgraded and only if the concensus rule is met.
How would that help?
You don't even take advantage of your own public blockchains transparent simple math ledger.
Every block do you make sure yourself that [all inputs] = [all outputs] yourself? Or do you just run a node like Monero users? In practice your argument falls apart.
Trivia: Did you know there was a hidden inflation bug in Bitcoin that only an anonymous user knew about? They couldve easily exploited it, but very luckily they were an honest actor who secretly let the devs know (who couldve also decided to exploit it). If they did exploit it, how would detectable inflation help after the fact? It wouldnt. It would be catastrophic for bitcoin and attackers have first mover advantage. There is no good solution to fix an exploited inflation bug without hurting other users.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2018/09/20/notice/
www.coindesk.com/markets/2018/09/21/the-latest-bitcoin-bug-was-so-bad-developers-kept-its-full-details-a-secret
Discussion
Every 10 minutes you are personally reading the blockchain and making sure all input and all outputs are equal to 0? You are either lying or must get no sleep sir.
You realize the only thing that saved bitcoin from that inflation bug was the good samaritan nature of a single anonymous user right? No amount of transparency could've stopped him from exploiting it.
Well, Bitcoin ever hardforking is a longshot, and if you need private transactions *today*, not in some hypothetical future, that is what Monero is for.
You're imagining some bad argument and dancing around the burning strawman.
Yes I do verify the blockchain every 10 minutes. Yes I do it personally. I verify the blockchain by reviewing the source code of the version of software that collects the blocks and verifies it. To do it 'personally' I guess you mean that I do it manually, and why the F would anyone do that?
So, then you are just letting a node run and paying no mind to the blockchain. Exactly like a Monero user would.
You are making my point for me. You are not taking advantage of Bitcoin's transparency. There is no material difference.
If there was an implementation bug exploited you would have no clue until it was already way too late.
I never said that you can't use monero. Be my guest. I'm only saying that bitcoin has an entirely different purpose and an entirely different strategy, and that's why it will eventually eat everything.