if you buy things at any retailer in person they have video cameras all over the place. no matter how you pay you're on video and they know exactly who you are. so the payment method is pretty much irrelevant you're not anonymous. plus the video could show you actually using bitcoin as payment. now the whole world knows or potentially could know that you use bitcoin. the people that run the cash registers will know. the security who watch the video cameras might know. you're not as anonymous as you think.
These video cameras are a possibly Privacy breaking deal but it does not mean the end of the world. While I hate them, I have to accustom myself to their existence and find other ways out. Even wearing a mask and a hat is still better than nothing at all. There are ways to improvize things on the moment.
How would the 'whole world' know that I used Bitcoin? How would they know me in the first place? Why would that video become known all over the World, does Walmart post their security camera videos all over the Internet constantly? Most of that footage likely ends up simply overwritten. I am paranoid and all but realistically speaking, unless somebody is looking to monitor you and investigate you or unless the surveillance camera owners are using software that processes feed information, faces et cetera, the chances of being recognized are very slim. And as far as I know, most big stores do not use cloud storage. That is comfortable for a home owner who wants to purchase a camera that works wirelessly almost immediately upon setup and placement. If you run these cameras storing the footage on HDDs like the old way, your face will probably be overwritten in a matter of weeks.
