To be honest, in 2017 I also refused to do KYC at many CEXs and only stored crypto in my personal account. Back then, Defi was not yet developed, so there were no famous DEXs other than EtherDelta, and Stable coins were not really popular, so I couldn't take profits, or rather, I thought crypto would change the world, so I held shitcoins in vain.
CEX is a business that needs to comply with AML/KYC regulations of governments, users also need to perform KYC to be able to use CEX, I think this is a normal and necessary thing.
Those who do not want to do KYC can use DEX very easily, but will need OTC when wanting to trade for fiat.