Hope this is appreciated
http://immutable.today/10-mistakes-bitcoin-newbies/
I just saw this thread and even if it's 2 months old it's still relevant.
The main mistakes that I think are the most common in the newbies from that article are:
-Mining bitcoins - I remember when I joined bitcoin I wanted to mine, and basically my laptop got overheated and i couldn't bare the noise and eventually, my laptop just died and had to get it repaired. Got literally 0 from that.
- Trading altcoins, buying into shitcoins - I bought into a coin called Zetacoin because there was such a big hype over at cryptsy at the time. In the end it was near worthless, and i'm not even sure that people have exchanges for it.
- Buying coin with paypal/CC - The reason why people charge outrageous rates is because they have to assume that you are a scammer. If you are legit then you can always go through the process of verification and buy from Coinbase, or other big exchanges for close to 1% of spot price.
I guess this kind of thread will never grow old. There is always a new comer to Bitcoin, meaning there is always a newbie everyday and these newbies always commit this kind of mistakes. Sad but true, it even happen to me lol. I once thought that faucet is a good way to get a good amount of bitcoin but well I find that it is wrong and faucets are just dust and will never give us a good amount with regards to the time consumed.
You can say it is a total waste of time to do faucet, but it is not wrong to earn in faucets, I have started earning in faucets and at first I am happy of the results because I have learn how to make transaction over an online wallet for the first time and I have felt happiness because of the first payment I have made in it that turn out to be just a little amount and there is a lot more in earning bitcoin, but I never have think about faucets are wrong!
Certainly faucets are the easiest way to make first contact with bitcoin. I, I have the same opinion as you, and my story with bitcoin very close to yours. In fact, the faucets take a lot of time, but what the problem in staying a few hours visiting faucets? I do not see any problem. Often, you see a notice (in some advertisement) that you find interesting, and so you end up learning something positive or negative that will surely add to your experience.