It's the same. And it's not brighter.
Now , since you gave that many example and talking about average joe...
How many people that owned dogecoins where actually watching nascar races...
The reddit is full of people (in the us) claiming that this was the first time they did and only because of the dogecar..
What I was trying to say is that the last publicity stunts don't really target the audience that doge needs and that most of the people who have seen that car and managed to get onto google to search for doge are having trouble using paypal not even talking about sending "coins" to "d73465743dfdfd66" kind of address.
And about that network effect... sure reddit audience is growing but is dogecoin use also growing?
NO! It's down to 10% since January per daily transactions to 15k daily since the peek of 200k.
There is no such thing as bad publicity. Sure, you can always do better and find better target audience, but it takes too much money to advertise to millions, and Dogecoin is doing its best with the money it can get from donations, and it's not much really, $50k is not much to get a really huge and perfect advertising campaign. However, it was not lost, Dogecoin was noticed.
Now, you talk about daily usage. I think the general trend with any crypto currency now is to buy and hold, not use. People who buy them want to get rid of fiat, because fiat is being printed much faster than any crypto currency, so why not spend a depreciating currency (USD, Euro, Yen, Yuan) and keep the one the supply of which is at least growing predictably and which is undervalued. It was a usage peak in January, yes, because it coincided with generally more interest for cryptos, Bitcoin was making the news more at that time + it was easier to mine doges back then and just give them away at faucets. Now that it's harder to mine, sure, there are less transactions, as doges are being hoarded, people don't give them away as easily as back then.
Dogecoin is more designed to be everyday internet currency, because: a) its supply is not capped (although this effect will be visible in a few years only, as in 2015-2020 Dogecoin inflation will not exceed that of Bitcoin, Bitcoin's monetary inflation will actually be larger for the next 5 years starting from 2015); b) it has more whole units, which appeals to human psyche, people want to feel rich having a lot of whole units of currency, not a measly fraction of a Bitcoin; c) there is no history of shady business in Dogecoin, no money launderers or drug dealers, which appeals to even more people, who don't want to touch Bitcoin for fear of being associated with any shady business. Dogecoin makes it easy for them to try crypto currencies, as it's cheap, and many stay with what they have learned.
While I agree with most of your post i don't with point 1.
That whole inflation thing propaganda is based on the fact that people don't calculate the inflation from the first years is which is in terms of thousands.
More than 77% of dogecoins have been mined in half a year compared to what percent in bitcoin.... 5 %?
It's normal that it will have a lower inflation for a period.
And.. i'm anti hoarding...
You want to keep your doge or btc , cool , buy other and spend them instead of the fiat you were going to spend anyway
If everybody will be stashing coins the value won't go up , it will go down...It;s a false sentiment that less available coins on the market will drive the price to the moon.
It was the huge number of transactions for doge and it's growing community that made me feel a bit attached to this coin , although I still see it as a bit of a joke
