100% there are trade offs, the “bloating” of the network is caused by the UTXO set needed to be saved to be used in different ring signatures and allows for full fungibility. The culture of hard forks is always with the intention of improving privacy, security and efficiency. Maintaining these qualities of a blockchain is a cat and mouse game where governments will always improve tracing abilities and Monero needs to do the same to fight back. If a hard fork wasn’t towards those goals, I would drop it in a flash.
Bitcoin’s privacy is multistep and clunky in it of itself with coinjoin and lighting. Plus I wouldn’t be surprised that governments or chain analysis finds a way to track these coins over time due to the transparent layer 1 settlement.
Also another trade off of having multiple layers over an efficient layer 1 is a centralizing effect with larger liquidity running through a specific number of lightning nodes. And how does one keep fees high enough for miners to continue to mine on BTC when everyone is using a second or third layer and there are no block rewards.
But all in all, I definitely think Bitcoin has its place with it being the market mover, the network effect and I want to see mass adoption of the coin. I watch Bitcoin adoption videos in the third world all the time.
But monero also has its place, fully grass root underground currency that gives privacy with no apologize or excuse. People should understand the nuance and pick what coin will best protect them with there specific threat models. Monero is vastly growing and taking over dark net markets, and in authoritarian regimes, monero should be the coin of choice like Lebanon, China, Columbia, Russia… telling people that Bitcoin is uncensorable and not teaching people the proper ways to maintain privacy is a disservice and puts people at risk.
