why does it have to be a dark-web market if blockchain payments are first class citizens? I suppose the general population isn't ready for decentralised payments yet or do you have another reason for such use-case generalization?

There are still many barriers to that "first class" status, taxes are mentioned most often.

Taxes are paid in fiat. Holding non-stablecoins would add even more of a tax headache because you'd have to track capital gain/loss as you enter/exit fiat for taxes / fees / vendors that don't accept crypto

Also the fact that general adoption has been slow so far may be a sign that there is not enough obvious value added for the average person to consider using crypto over fiat.

who would pay with non-stablecoins though? The oath seems to be cbdcs that are compatible with public smart contract blockchains

There's also the risk that stablecoins aren't actually stable but just claim to be such: https://www.coindesk.com/tether-first-reserve-composition-re...

One reason that comes to mind is trying to be the change they want to see in the world. Cards and Paypal already have heaps of adoption.

The end user won't see a change in their cards though

I believe there are some use cases. Think of a government which does not allow currency conversion to more stable currencies in a place where volatility or inflation is very high. In that situation, it might be worth adopting a crypto-first approach, no?

But doesn't crypto have very high volatility?

For example, Reserve is a stablecoin designed for markets like Venezuela where it's "illegal" to use USD or EUR.

I'm pretty sure they will make all the stablecoins illegal as well. The fact that they cant really enforce it .. thats something else.

Normal citizens won't need 3rd party stablecoins when cbdcs are available