Nice to read your thoughts again, Eunice! It's been a while. :)

I ponder about this issue sometimes. For one, I think the privacy issue is overblown, if only because I've seen people willingly give up their privacy time and again for convenience. In much of the public mind, "privacy" is a bit of a theoretical issue.

A decade or so ago, it was smartphones, with the idea of having a full-fledged computing device with an embedded GPS chip and an operating system whose source code is controlled by a single company (in the case of Apple) horrifying many. Doesn't seem to have harmed iPhone adoption.

These days, it's e-wallets. Used to be the case that people were concerned with using card payments because of all the data the financial card companies were collecting on personal expenditures. Then, it was concern about contactless payments and the ability of hackers to steal your data on the air. Now, so many people seem all too ready to give up cash payments entirely for e-wallets.

If this trend holds, I suspect CBDC critics will be a vocal minority at the beginning but their voices will be progressively drowned out...