But privacy is essential to make it possible. Seriously, would you choose a bank which would post details for every payment you make online, available for everybody to read? Try imagine what can bad people do with that information.

essential for it to gain users but by no means a technical requirement.

Besides getting actual privacy with cryptocurrency requires jumping through a lot of hoops, covering a lot of tracks, and trusting a lot of people. I think privacy is the killer feature that we will never actually have.

edit: you are of course right and I am splitting hairs, but I do think real privacy is impossible.