im pretty bearish on ENS long-term

imo any sufficiently popular cryptosocial product will generate native demand for their own namespace, and be able to charge rent for identities. it'll be more profitable than co-opting ENS

the only truly canonical, interoperable identity is an ethereum address

You're highlighting web3's biggest problem btw: everyone wants to build protocols, and wants builders to build on top of them, but the application layer is too thin. When an app DOES win at the application layer, they build their own protocols (example: opensea & seaport).

Building https://srcbook.com // creator of the https://blockchainsmokers.xyz 

This is honestly overlooked. Hard to build defensibility at the application layer