My biggest fear for Bitcoin's future is that it becomes like email.

The cypherpunks and much of the tech that helped build up Bitcoin were based on remailers - web servers that could anonymously forward email under the right settings. Governments didn't fight email as a protocol - rather they embraced the companies that provided easy onboarding for the vast majority of people (Google and Gmail, Microsoft and Outlook/Hotmail) and leaned on them for data. Private companies built the surveillance rails of the Internet while being separated "enough" from the state to be "cool". Might it be the same with Coinbase and Binance (which has developed perhaps one of the most sophisticated views of Lightning Network)?

Now the reality is that you can use encrypted email, anonymous remailers and set up your own email server - yet very few people choose to do so - few enough that you taking these actions probably flags you on a list. Might it be the same with people who choose to set up their own nodes in the future (or perhaps already in the present?).