Again I tried to convey this in the OP but you'd be floored at how uncomfortable people are using a VPN to access non-KYC exchanges like MEXC. Doesn't matter if people can do something if they just won't do it. It's a weird problem.

But also that extra step loses a lot of people no matter what.
Simply having a listing on a big exchange is free marketing.
MEXC is a relatively small/unknown one that we only know about because we need it.