raccoondad
Obviously Monero has its uses, and within the network, assuming keys are protected, its obfuscated fairly well.
However: its still a public ledger, its data is public and permanent. This is the same for bitcoin as much as it is for monero.
I can't query from an input its used output once its spent, unless I have the original stealth addresses private key (the integer that when using scalar multiplication on the generator of the curve gets me to the public keys 'point' in the curve order), in which case I could calculate the keyimage and query that. Regardless backtracking the transaction data further would be an issue.
But none of this really matters if you don't really understand what you are doing and the implications of it. Monero isn't going to protect you from anywhere outside of monero, and you also have to consider the implications of how monero, as a public permanent ledger, will effect how you want to use it.
Monero has also not exactly claimed to be 'anonymous', I suppose you could say ring signatures for inputs would count as anonymity (the identity of the true transaction isn't revealed to anyone but who can generate the original keyimage), but the term monero has always used is "private."
I agree with the term 'private' to an extent, but I prefer obfuscated. The data is public, its meaning is not. Its a mix of probability that gets harder to follow as transactions go on.
I guess obfuscated could give the allusion that to undo said obfuscation is trivial, which it isn't, but regardless, these things are important to truly understand and using monero without understanding could actually damage your privacy and security (any webapp that claims to be a monero wallet is almost always going to be a scam, hence hurting security.)