Topic: Bitcoin needs to be simplified for the stupid. - page 3. (Read 7638 times)

I've explained Bitcoins to 2 university undergrads yesterday and it took them quite some time to get it. I don't think the mining aspect is all that important but it's the implication of Bitcoins that is hard to get right away... It can take some time for it all to click in.

Of course, there are people who just don't care or want to understand anything outside of their comfort-zone. Bitcoin is funny like that, it's a great barometer of one's aptitude to adapting and accepting new concepts... some people just aren't capable of generating self-interest even when the result would obviously be rewarding to them.

Okay, so after telling my friends about bitcoin, I decided to give them a lecture on bitcoin.
Of course they were intrigued and wanted to know every last detail.
It took me around, a hour to explain the basics to them over a skype call, at the end they were all confused and had no idea what I had just told them, one even said "That is no possible", what is not possible, I asked.
He said a online currency, I laughed and ended the skype call, lol.

Anyway, the point is bitcoin is in need to be simplified and I THINK a lot of people agree on the subject, the whole mining bit is confusing even for veterans of bitcoin.

Yes I agree with what you've said. I'm just saying that services revolving around Bitcoins, like a smartphone client, should be easy enough for nearly anyone to use.

The point is that stupid people exist, and they are a substantial part of any economy. You need them as much as they need you. Make Bitcoins easier and more attractive for them, and everyone is happy.

to the OP:

Bitcoin is already simplified for the stupid.  The only idea that could make it even simpler is to introduce hardware based wallets that conduct monetary transactions regardless of the user's intelligence level.

Yes, but first the product (Bitcoin system, inclusive of Bitcoin clients, e.g. Bitcoin-Qt) must be customized for the stupid (me inclusive) / polished to meet their capabilities.

It is too early to spend resources on marketing Bitcoin. I would not like to see people burned. If the stupid get burned you can expect a well-deserved negative PR. Such PR will not elevate Bitcoin prices. And we hope the prices to rise, don't we?

I was just thinking of the various ways that a firm could advertise Bitcoins advantages over cash and even credit card for someone who does a lot of in person shopping (i.e. for food, for clothes, etc.).

Perhaps we should highlight how instead of carrying a wallet full of card and cash, they could make do with just their cell phones as long as they have a Bitcoin wallet app on it.

Less fiddling and carrying of coins and change and no need to secure your credit card, sign anything or punch in any pin codes. Everything you need is already on your cell phone.

If Bitcoins can be marketed as a tool of saving time then there should be enough appeal for masses to try it out.

Not to mention capacitive touchscreens + insects + Bitcoin wallet/client = potential disaster without human error.  A random horsefly thought I'd look smashing in a full body black latex BDSM style Halloween costume last year.  Damn you amazon one-click.  True story.

If devs can fix the horsefly/misclick scenario and improve ease of use without letting in too much hot air in at once; I'll post pics of me in the costume.  Disclaimer:  It will cost 0.5 BTC to take the pics down.

I find that I have a lot of trouble explaining Bitcoins to the average person well enough so that they are intrigued enough to research it on their own.

There definitely needs to be a bit more "fun" in the Bitcoin ecosystem; some sort of PR campaign that not only get investors interested but your everyday layman interested.

We have to make Bitcoin cool for mass consumption.

I think we need a car analogy, no?

When you've sat an watched a Grandma in a library help a 30-something use their paypal account, you realise it's a lot less about age and a lot more about mental acuity

If you're going to make a user-friendly client for nonspecialists, I will suggest the first thing you should do is check to see whether it's on a pristine machine or one with other stuff installed and in the latter case refuse to run, with an appropriate error message. Above all else, Bitcoin for nonspecialists needs to put a stop to the endless stream of newbies having their money stolen, and part of that is making sure people don't put their bitcoins on the same machine they use for other stuff.

(The client should also check whether it's running in a virtual machine and refused to run if so, to guard against a case where somebody tries to run it in a virtual machine on the same physical computer they use for other stuff.)

We might take it further and call time periods: BCE (before cryptocurrency era) and ACE. Or would the Christians riot?

I think it would grab peoples attention if you call it the "global currency".  Or is that too far fetched 

some of these threads could be used as plot ideas for the Big Bang Theory!

Its not complicated, the masses just need to know how to send and receive money and thats is quite easy, who knows the algorith ussed at visa or mastercard datacenters? nobody..
when someone ask again what is bitcoin just respond.. "is a new currency, and its value is this" thats all.

I'll just say that I am a decent technical writer, and have written many internal software user guides for various companies I have worked for.  I'm also a writer for Bitcoin Magazine.  I would be willing to write a step-by-step user guide on Bitcoin-QT if a bounty is put together.  I would want to cover every feature that the Bitcoin-QT client is capable of, which I am certain includes features I haven't even used yet, and gear it towards the layman.

Look at how banks made it for today's normal user, currently I have seen 2 different implementation:

1.
The user get a smartcard which hold their private key, and a card reader which should holds bank's public key (not sure). There are four functions on the card reader: "login", "buy", "code", "sign"

When you do a login or a purchase, you first input your user name on website, and you get a control string from the bank,  and press the corresponding function button and input the control string into the cardreader, then you need to input your pin code (like bitcoin client's wallet password), then the card reader will generate a signature string and you input that string into the page of the website to confirm the login or purchase

2.
The user get a signature generating device which contains exactly the same algorithm the bank's software is using. User need to input 2 control strings in sequence to generate the signature, there is also a pin code challenge for that device

In both case, users have the key stored in a hardware, and the security for that key is 3 levels: 1. physically 2. the pin code to the key 3. The account that is connected to the key

If someone successfully steal the hardware key, he still need to have the pin code (the device automatically locked after 3 failed attempts), and even if he get the pin code, he still need to know which account this key is related to at the bank

And if the user lose the key, he will call the bank and block the key immediately, bank will generate a new hardware key and send it to user

It's obviously going to take a right-brained artistic approach, a la Steve Jobs. Get out of the way people. It is like watching the geek follies. Solutions are client-based, not Bitcoin-based.
Try thinking about what other systems require features of WoT, such as voting.

Yes, indeed. We need something that's not a lot of work to set up, otherwise it kind of defeats its purpose and detracts from development on bitcoin-qt itself

Indeed. We'll see if they're willing to put their money where their mouth is. It'd be a kind of social experiment I guess. In an "anarchistic" community you cannot levy taxes, so people have to look out for themselves to make sure infrastructure happens, too.

I don't think this is about power. More about motivation. It's a nuisance if people request things and expect that you're going to do it in your spare time, but if they pay for it it's different.

And of course it should be clear that any economic change to the system is strictly off limits (ie, raising the amount of coins, change the mining algorithm). This would be meant to fund the "unsexy" changes that do require a sizeable amount of work, such as front-end changes, back-end optimizations, bug fixes that require a lot of diagnostics and debugging work, and so on.

1. Very well then 

2. We need a technology (website, a sub-forum) that allows submitting feature requests, describing them, putting a price tag, etc.

3. There is of course the risk of this idea to fail:
a) the users might not be interested in paying for the features they think are absolutely essential to be implemented (people are greedy), and / or
b) developers might not be interested in giving some power over how Bitcoin-Qt develops to non-geeks,
c) others ...