Is privacy a feature or a product?

I came across an interesting old (2019) article that argues against zcash (and all privacy coins) in a way i hadn’t heard before.

Here’s the link: https://multicoin.capital/2019/09/24/privacy-is-a-feature/

This paragraph stood out to me:
Unfortunately, as we have described above, the cost of perfectly private transactions by default, a la Zcash, is too high. It ruins another core value proposition of cryptocurrencies: The permissionless ability to verify that throughout the entire history of transactions no double-spends occurred, and no undue inflation occurred. Without this verification property, no cryptocurrency can be socially scalable enough to win as a global, state-free money.

Any thoughts on the “unverifiable inflation” narrative? Is “perfect privacy > lost in the crowd” compelling enough re: to reach critical mass for a global network effect?

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It’s worth noting that Multicoin had an open ZEC short position at that time, although it was disclosed in that post.

& as far as I understand it, Turnstiles play a role in regard to verifying the supply, but I will let someone more knowledgeable on the topic than myself answer further…

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