Different people enjoy their coffee at different temperatures. Those who enjoy drinking steam should be able to make that choice without being "protected" from themselves.
I'd love it if the serving temperature of the coffee became more of a prominent option - I personally have to let freshly brewed coffee sit for ~20 minutes to be drinkable, and I even go so far as to delay adding cream (if I am going to) so that it loses heat quicker. But I still respect that my preference isn't universal.
Did you miss the part where the coffee was hot enough to melt skin and incur third degree burns? If you want that, then yes, I would say you need to be protected from yourself.
As will any boiling water, yet that's what much coffee is made with. Some people add a lot of cream and still want it hot, some people like to hold a hot mug for a while before drinking, some people like to sip and mix with air. My father will complain that the coffee is not hot enough, yet it is way too hot for me. As I said, people are entitled to have personal preferences even if you can't identify with them at all. What exactly do you gain from pigeonholing them as weirdos and asserting that their wishes should not be respected?
This is why I prefer to drink coffee in Italy (which can pretty much claim to be the origin of coffee in the western world) where they serve it warm-hot, but not boiling, and it's delicious. I tend to be on the libertarian side of the 'allowed to do things that might be dangerous' debate, but - in this case - the default (only?) option was 'extremely dangerous', which I don't think is wise.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that such a person needs to be protected from himself. But, as with any other bizarre fetish revolving around self-harm, the proper place to indulge it is at home.
I'd love it if the serving temperature of the coffee became more of a prominent option - I personally have to let freshly brewed coffee sit for ~20 minutes to be drinkable, and I even go so far as to delay adding cream (if I am going to) so that it loses heat quicker. But I still respect that my preference isn't universal.