Points you left out:
1. Credit card companies make money on interest, and can provide rewards programs to customers. Bitcoins can't. Advantage - Credit Cards.
You are paying for those rewards (and more!) indirectly i.e. the payment processing costs charged to the merchant and reflected in prices. CC companies make money on interest but they also spend an enormous amount on infrastructure, staff, etc. I think you're overestimating the value of the "rewards".
2. Credit cards allow someone to know how much money they can spend. Bitcoin prices are volatile, and need to be converted back to USD to determine their value. Advantage - credit cards.
True, but Bitcoin is still in its infancy. The price will stabilise over time. Agree that it's a chicken and egg scenario though.
3. Theft and fraud - Someone steals my credit card, and the bank is SOL as long as I report it when I notice it. Someone steals BitCoins, the owner is SOL. Advantage - credit cards.
There is a justice system, you know? Go get your coins back. Don't want to risk it, then only trade with reputable merchants or merchants that use escrow or indeed arrange your own escrow or insurance. Your costs don't need to be added to my bill.
Points you're taking an awfully biased approach on.
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2. Time of transaction - A pending transaction with a bank is slightly more reliable than a pending transaction with a random person. For online purchases (excluding instantaneous downloads), it may not be an issue, but this would never work in retail stores, or for online products that people would instantly receive.
Double-spending is very difficult. I suspect most merchants will happily proceed with zero confirms for all but high value transactions if they can be certain an appropriate tx fee was paid).
My thoughts.
I'd add one very simple point: the CC companies make billions of dollars every year. Think about how they do that. They are ruthless. Clue: it's by tricking you into thinking you get a good deal.
I remember in the UK a year or two ago we had CC companies intentionally changing the monthly due date for repayments to catch people out that had set up standing orders to pay their bills on time!
- Credit card companies have two types of consumers. Those who have money and can pay off their bill monthly. These people will earn rewards and do not pay interest. It is better for them to use credit cards. The other type is those that don't have money. As they're using credit cards to borrow, they won't have any bitcoins to spend. Either way, people will use credit over bitcoins.
- The price will never stabilize to the point where companies will not base the price of a good off of the dollar. Maybe decades from now at the earliest. Retailers will always base BTC off of stable government backed money. Businesses aren't stupid. They'll look at how the unstable, non-regulated, currencies of the pre-1900s, utterly destroyed businesses with massive value swings, and always seek to have their money in a currency that is regulated and has a predictable inflation rate.
- Good luck tracking someone down from across the country (or even out of the country) because of a $500 - $1,000 theft. Or at least good luck in a way that won't cost you far more than that to get your money back.
- There's still two major problems with stopping double spending. First, it's much easier to attempt than normal theft, and there would be plenty of people willing to try it. Second, it would be near impossible to stop. Similar to how some shoplifters "accidentally" forget about that last item in their cart, thieves could always claim they forgot that they had already moved their BTC in an earlier transaction.
Credit card companies are greedy and evil, but for the forseeable future, they're going to provide a much better option for paying for items.
