When I get paid in fiat, I won't buy bitcoin just to then turn around ad spend in bitcoin.

It's the same thing if I get paid in bitcoin. I won't "cash out" into fiat, and then spend in fiat if I am able to just spend in bitcoin. Thanks to services that I've found, I'm able to essentially spend nearly all my bitcoin income in bitcoin and only need to cash out ... either small amounts, or for a few specific payments (e.g., rent). Well, that's if you count BitRefill, and The Bitcoin Company as "spending in bitcoin". Technically, those are exchange methods that perform the cash out into fiat for me, and then pay the merchant/vendor in fiat. So those aren't methods that perpetuate a circular economy.

At a restaurant I frequent there is a server who is familiar with bitcoin, as this person uses it for cross-border remittance. I find it sad that I cannot pay the restaurant in bitcoin, and they use that bitcoin when paying this employee. That would be an ideal "closed loop" / "circular bitcoin economy" transaction.

We're barely further along in that area than a decade ago, at least in the U.S.

But having a bank lets me move fiat into bitcoin easier. Now that Strike no longer works with my bank debit card, I guess I will have to try direct deposit into my Strike account for some of my fiat income (ADP supposedly will allow this, we'll see).

That too is sad, for me, to see. I have fiat income, and I know there is someone with bitcoin needing fiat who would be willing to do a trade, locally, in cash. I'ld much prefer that, but every time I've tried to do such a P2P trade it's been only infrequently that a trade has occurred. I'll usually need to close the untaken P2P offer and re-deposit the cash in order to do a bank transfer to purchase from a centralized exchange.

So essentially, what I'm saying is that I would have a hard time going entirely without a bank but there are things I can do to help try and support a circular economy (by seeking ways to spend in bitcoin) and that increase in activity essentially adds to the network effect and that makes the circular economy easier to participate in for a larger footprint of the bitcoin user base. It is then, that choosing to go bankless can become a reality.