Yeah, THIS.  Its not about privacy improvements, IMO.  Its about 1) sending money directly to someone, instead of asking for an invoice, 2) not having to deal with lightning channel liquidity management, and 3)assuming people are using the same mint ,  no more "can't find path" LN payment failures to deal with.

Plus, ecash can be minted that is linked to someone's npub, and that is really powerful too.