Topic: Bitcoin isn't worth it for consumers. And that will stop adoption. - page 4. (Read 9891 times)

Not really... you have to UNDERSTAND... HOW "NEW" IS BITCOIN COMPARE TO CASH/AMEX/ETC... MY example was... ACCEPTING AMEX BEFORE and NOT ACCEPTING AMEX ANYMORE... This is not bitcoin... bitcoin is the other way around...

People did not start using PAPER money right away... IT TOOK HUNDREDS OF YEARS... before we switch from GOLD/SILVER to PAPER MONEY

How many people uses BITCOIN from last "2 years" ago versus people using bitcoins "TODAY"

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

Merchants would much rather accept btc than cc, therefore many merchants (like myself) will, at least initially, decrease prices in order to promote btc purchases. Now some merchants may increase them again after awhile but then other smaller merchants will simply continue offering the discounts and the merchants selling above the equilibrium will go out of business.

Many people don't understand just how much merchants love bitcoin. Here are a couple stats from my own business:
- 15% of our capital goes to accounting/fraud department.
- About 1 hour per day spent (wasted) responding to fraudulent chargebacks/disputes.
- 2% of total revenue stolen by Visa/Amex as a result of fraudulent chargebacks, plus the dollar value of those items that were not returned.
- 3% of total revenue immediately deducted for cc transaction fees.

Want to know how easy it is for a consumer to scam with fiat? Sign up for Amex. Buy something. Call Amex and say you didn't buy it. Get money back, and keep the item as well. That's it. Merchants HATE credit cards, we're just forced to accept them because they basically have a monopoly on the fiat market.

Then when you look like a company like Apple they probably have an even bigger amount wasted on fake chargebacks because kids use their parents' cc's to buy apps and stuff and then the parents dispute it. All you need is 1 big company like Apple to start accepting btc and then it's game over for fiat.  

Doesn't this just support the OP, position?  Here, maybe this will help.  For the same situation,

What good is your Bitcoin if they do not ACCEPT IT?

---> There is no such thing as "INCENTIVE" in using any money at all.. LET ME ASK YOU.. do you get "INCENTIVE" using CASH? The only reason people are using CASH is because EVERYBODY USES it...

Maybe you defined INCENTIVE as CONVENIENCE? Even if you use CONVENIENCE... CASH STILL FALL SHORT to BITCOIN in terms of CONVENIENCE...

HOW ABOUT THIS ----> WHAT GOOD IS YOUR PAPER MONEY IF NOBODY ACCEPTS IT??? Well.. actually MANY BANKS WILL STILL ACCEPT YOUR PAPER MONEY... they have too... they created/printed that money.... and they have to SHOW it is WORTH SOMETHING???

----> but WHAT WILL YOU DO if.. a RESTAURANT DOES NOT ACCEPT PAPER MONEY??? CAN YOU STILL EAT IN THAT RESTAURANT???

You see the situation quoted above? What good is your platinum/Centurion card if they do not ACCEPT IT? Good thing I got the debitcard or me and my wife could have ended washing the dishes the entire day/night...






---> Difficult than cash? My Grandmother is 75 Years old and she has a bitcoin wallet... using it to do CASINO ONLINE... so how hard can it be?

---> Confusing? My Grandmother wasn't confused? She got a few winnings from Online Bitcoin Casino already... and bought us some pizza/chicken from time to time...

---> Ugly? How? bitcoin does not get into dirty hands like cash (literally)... cash can be putt in anybody's BUTT (Sexy stripper or FAT SICK HOMOs) and you still hold that cash in your hands...

If you have acquired 100 bitcoins, it does not hurt to spend one coin. So bitcoin is also very useful for consumers, but the difference with fiat money is that you have to first save then spend. And this is a good thing, this will eliminate the financial risk of a loan based consumption model

Non sequitur alert, abandoning conversation...

This summarizes my original post perfectly.

Lets hope Gavin has theses issues at the top of his "To Do" list, because the longer they fester, the greater chance the media picks up on them, and this will be the focus of Bitcoin.   The avalanche of media attention pointing out that you can't do chargebacks hasn't happened yet.   Someone better get their sh*t together and fix it before the avalanche comes.   The only response to this I've seen is that consumers and merchants have to work through the problem together.  That of course is an invalid solution which won't fly.  

We need to make adoption not only EASY, but DESIRABLE.   If its only EASY and there's no incentive making it DESIRABLE, then it wont happen.  If its DESIRABLE, but  not easy, then it wont happen.  Currently bitcoin is NOT easy and in many ways NOT desirable to consumers.  

Someone needs to fix both.  Quick.

Every single person I know.

Probably every single person you know.

Aside from the 1 to 10 possible Bitcoin enthusiasts we know.

bitcoin is simply as stated above a "global local currency" just as ithaca hours is the local currency of ithaca new york

I think you proved my point perfectly.  

Huh?

What exactly is easy about paper bills and CC? I can't wait for the day that I go out to eat with friends and instead of waiting for a confused waitress to split our bills 6 ways, take our cards individually, print out several copies of each of our bills, and have us all individually sign, we just get an address to pay to and send whatever we owe. Done.

Yea, consumers have absolutely no need and self-interest to use a currency that breaks free from the corruption that is our monetary system right now.
I grant you that most don't care, but that is, hopefully, just ignorance and awareness is changing quickly.

We know from experience that trickle down economics does not work.  Bitcoin is currently good for merchants but terrible for consumers.  Merchants likely won't reduce prices and will jump on Bitcoin as a way to increase their profit margins by paying fewer fees to the CC companies. Consumers won't buy BTC for retail spending because paper bills and CC are WAY easier.  Not to mention, aquiring Bitcoin is a pain in itself and lets not get started on storing them securely.

Much of this can likely be worked out over the coming decade.  The internet was pretty much useless too when it started.  It takes time to build useful infrastructure.  VISA was started in the late 50's, got it's official name in the mid-70's and didn't reach "everywhere you want to be" until the 2000's.  It's going to take a long time so, dig in and if possible, find ways to create services that make Bitcoin and all of the crypto-currency world more useful.

Merchants have been tearing their hair out over credit card fees for the better part of two decades without any recourse until now. If merchants use bitcoin they can pass those savings on to consumers using bitcoin, and you can bet that consumers will follow the money.  Credit card fraud is huge because there is (quite literally) no security - all the information required to process a single transaction can be used to make new transactions. And I also think you underestimate the fact that poorer populations have a difficult time getting a bank account at all, let alone a bank account that doesn't eat away your money with monthly fees and hidden fines.

Sending money across the world in seconds without having to open an account or rely on a third party is not trivial. Being able to secure your own money more completely than any current bank in the world (when implemented properly) is not trivial. I have to agree with the satire thread that opened up here comparing your views to those of the public towards the internet in the early 90's - you just don't get it.

Another good thing in bitcoin it saves your time and money as it was in my case.

Once I paid with credit card for a database server for our new business project. My sysadmins swiftly uploaded all necessary stuff and it went online.
But three days later I found the server offline. I called the datacenter and found they suspended it because they suspected it was unauthorized transaction. To resolve the problem I had to spend half a day printing, signing and scanning shitty papers required by their "risk" department. Finally I lost over $500 which I paid my sysadmin for setting up backup server until suspended one is resolved.


So, fuck Visa and Mastercard dinosaurs! I'm glad I can instantly pay with bitcoin without any hassles and "verifications".

I can even imagine companies in the future with services for payments with Bitcoin that includes costumer protection.

- Buy an item with credit card, the price is $100
- Buy an item with bitcoin, the price is $75
- Buy an item with bitcoin, including costumer protection, the price is $90.

The big thing about bitcoin is that enables a new way to send money online everywhere in the world, and peer to peer.

Everything that exists already is posible to do it using bitcoin.

Until the price of bitcoin hasn't stabilized at a much higher level, the points made by the OP are valid. Which means it has to grow significantly in a rather short time.

I see the future of bitcoin being used for store of wealth and very large purchases (cars, houses, etc), and alt-coins used for everything else, for example a grocery store type of purchases, sort of like copper coins were used in the 19th century to pay for a loaf of bread. Several alt-coins will have their niche as their valuations grow, but their valuations still won't be too high to discourage users from spending them like they will be discouraged from spending their bitcoins for every day routine purchases. Gresham's law. Bitcoin will just be valued too high to be used to buy a beer, not to mention, it alone simply cannot process thousands of transactions per second for all these daily purchases by many people. It will need a lot of help from alt-coins' networks.

Agreed.  Purchasing time on bitpay.com automated sites is about the same as a credit card, maybe a little faster. 

Knowing that they do not have my credit card number...... Priceless! 

As a proxy for actual commerce, watch out for data from bitpay on how the usd volume of bitcoin biz done by its customers. Think that number was 6.4m used for sep, growing about 20%mom which is impressive but not stellar in an ecosystem sense...

Zanglebert has hit the nail on the head as I've been thinking about this for many months too.  Bitcoin as a day to day currency has issues still to overcome HOWEVER it is the only store of value not related to a specific country that makes it incredibly useful.  Gold is the next best thing yet that still is miles behind what Bitcoin offers...
The advantages of Bitcoin being easily transferable, requires no storage costs at all, can't be copied or hoaxed, Bitcoin has an easy market anyone can trade with and if the trading platforms were for some reason unreachable the trade can still happen person to person or institution to institution.

This leads itself to a very ironic purpose... for countries to store their wealth to back their currency.  As far as I know, there is no common basis for money between countries... like time has GMT, temperature has Kelvin... it's a way for people anywhere on the planet to talk the same language.

Bitcoin could offer this global common ground where anyone or anything can put their value in there safely knowing more can not be printed to dilute it, safely stored until ever needed and easily transferable to a local currency to facility international trade easily.

One btc now is worth something in every country, pick and choose where and when you want to cash it in for your local currency