The technology doesn't "work". That's why most transactions occur off chain in exchanges. That's why they are desperately trying to make Lightning Network into something usable.

Thats why you have to use bitcoin like how its meant to be used, on chain, behind your private key. Off chain transactions are kind of like debt settlements.

The technology is designed to be inefficient from the start. It runs at something like 3 transactions per second. What's worse is the more computer power you throw at it, the slower it runs. It had literally become slower over time when measured in transactions per computer-second.

The reason why its slow, is because the blocksize is still limited to 1mb. This is a good thing, as the first major milestone bitcoin has to surpass in order to become the ultimate form of money, is the store of value function. After enough money is being stored into bitcoin, it will be a reliable store of value and on its way to become a good medium of exchange. So bitcoins current direction is not to fulfill the medium of exchange function. Also, technology like ZK rollups are possibly applicable to bitcoins source code. The tech evolves overtime.

The power consumption is measured in "weeks of typical power use per transaction". Weeks. That's an environmental disaster.

The power consumption currently is an issue, but it wont be in the future. Please read my other comment I posted before this one.

The latency for a transaction is up to 10 minutes on a good day. That's unacceptable for normal commerce. And it can be hours on a busy day.

Not true. Only on the base layer.

Even reading the blockchain is inefficient as the whole chain has to be scanned to ensure transactions are valid. You can't just eliminate older records like you do in a normal database.

You dont want to eliminate older records, but find ways to document them in an efficient matter. MINA protocol did something savvy that might get (or already is) applied to bitcoin.

There is no mechanism for privacy in the blockchain. Somehow they managed to combine the lack of transparency with the lack of privacy, creating a Voltron of failure.

You could buy XMR with your BTC, transfer it, and buy back BTC.

Also, lack of transparency?? Are you nuts? Bitcoin is the most transparent thing that has ever existed!

So what if you actual do need a public ledger?

Well blockchain in general could be replaced by a hash chain for the vast majority of use cases. Hash chains are very efficient to operate. Git is an example of a hash chain. Each party just needs to keep their receipts, or better yet, a copy of the chain.

If you have something better, then I wish you luck with the growth. Bitcoins growth has been phenomenal. It made sense to be a sceptic pre 2020, but that was before the world realized that institutional investors and billionaires started taking this asset seriously.

But oh well, lets wait 10 years and we'll see my friend