Topic: Bitcoin needs to be simplified for the stupid. - page 5. (Read 7603 times)

Why not just represent the private key with a PIN so that its as easy as a debit card?
grandma understands PIN numbers  

Solution: if you need paper wallets, use a client that supports this natively, such as Armory.

Do not tell non-technical people to mess around with individual private/public keys in Bitcoin-Qt. NEVER.

Grandmas will have no problem with understanding a public key, a private key and a wallet.

Grandmas will have problem understanding ''importing a private key'', ''dumping private key''.

Imagine the following situation:

Grandson: Dear, this is a paper wallet for you. Factually a paper wallet is a piece of paper with toner on it.
Grandma: Fantastic. I can pay for my new jaw now.
Grandson: But before you pay you must first import the key printed on this piece of paper into Bitcoin-Qt
Grandma: But I am not in an import-export business, I do not want to import anything. Besides I already have the private key. It would make a better sense if I export what I already have rather than import what I already have, right?
Grandson: You stupid woman. Just type your private key into Bitcoin-Qt.
Grandma: Why didn't you simply say I need to type it. Why so sophisticated words for an action that even stone age people could perform? BTW, wouldn't it be much more convenient for me in 21. century to tell Bitcoin-Qt what I want to do, e.g. if I want to make a payment I simply click ''make the payment'', then Bitcoin-Qt asks ''from available funds or from a paper wallet?'', if I click ''from a paper wallet'', then Bitcoin-Qt just prompts me to type the private key? On the other hand, must I remember all these bad grammar phrases like ''importprivkey''?
Grandson: It's for your own good that you learn new stuff, you silly. Be more geeky.

For "stupid" you need to have a bank with full control over customers money. Which will also destroy all advantages of Bitcoin over PayPal-like services.
Without 3rd party organization, there is a chance they will loose the wallet, forget the password, install a virus, damage a trezor device, lost the paper with seed... Who will be blamed when such things happen? "BAD, BAD Bitcoin!"

Don't trust me? Just look at how many tech. skilled people had their savings on InstaWallet or MyBitcoin.

It's also due to the structure of a forum. In the beginning I already noticed that the forum has essentially no short nor long term memory. It's always the same topics, same questions. May be due to a broken search, or no incentive to search; too easy to create a new one, and there is (unlike reddit et al) no voting mechanism to quickly sink the crap topics to the bottom.

It'd be great to have some archive of most common questions and remarks and answers to that. There is https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ but it mostly addresses concerns about the system, it is not extensive enough to refer to in cases like this.

I guess people are lazy enough to keep anything like that up to date, but not lazy enough to answer the same questions time after time

It’s interesting to me that over the last few years I’ve watched people rehash the same topics over and over again. Most of the usernames change but the answers are always the same and almost predictable.  I guess it’s not possible to come up with much new material on a fairly dry finance topic.


https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-to-explain-bitcoin-to-old-people-100639

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/explaining-bitcoin-to-regular-people-10906

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-do-you-explain-bitcoins-to-your-grandma-12845

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/idea-for-a-ui-that-grandmas-could-use-in-order-to-create-entropy-133787

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcointalk-needs-to-be-more-noob-friendly-148339

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/say-my-grandma-wanted-to-use-bitcoin-17034

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/help-me-build-a-tutorial-for-bitcoin-newbies-108991

Nah, i don't agree. The abstraction is wallets, not keys. The "stupid" don't need to understand how the internals of a wallet work any more than they need to know what molecules and atoms make up the internals of a physical wallet (and if they do they should know they can easily blow up their wallet messing with random chemicals :-).

The current take on user-friendly interface is to import, export, backup, on the level of entire wallets. HD wallets would be preferred as they need to be backed up only once. A generic import/export format for wallets between clients is in the works.

Physical devices also work at the wallet level, not on an individual private/public key. I'm really interested in developments there too.

Right, but that is already under way. Once some way of working warrants a dialog window, a dialog window will be added. The console however is for developers, and grandmas and such should really stay out of it. They can send coins and receive coins from/to their grandchildren with the UI interface just fine.

No, grandma must understand public key and private key, there is no way to jump over this fundamental mechanism of cryptography 

I think a good move is to make a physical private key just like grandma's key to her house

Or scared of the new tech conservative isn't == stupid just means cautious unless your progressive and will accept change

Come on... being IT-not-gifted does not equal being stupid. His friends may very well be great musicians, dancers, writers. How would you react when labelled stupid for your potential poor musical, dancing or writing skills?

... consider that maybe you are hanging out with stupid people?

Yes I think everyone can agree that bitcoin needs to be a lot more simplified for it ever to go "mainstream".

The truth is that with the exception of the ones that work in IT , pretty much all of my friends have no desire to use bitcoin when I try to explain it to them and they tend to just have a blank stare on their face. 

I discussed this in my interview on lets talk bitcoin: http://letstalkbitcoin.com/

So who wants to start the AOL of Bitcoin? At least you won't have the cost of sending Bitcoin CDs out in the mail like they had to

Actually we don't need to make it hard on the technical side
We just need to make it easier on the consumer side

I'd say smartcards (smart objects) are parts of the solution, they need to be easy to use as well (as plug & play as possible) - we'll have things to show and share regarding that at Bitcoin 2013.

I'm also wondering what's going on with the "original bitcoincard" considering the company creating it is a top sponsor of the conference. Hopefully they'll leave stealth mode soon

OMG! This means Windows 3.11 for workgroups is next? Or even Windows 95? Shit just kept getting worse.

Some ideas look great on first sight, are had by everyone and his sister, yet never make it.

I see some problems with the "encrypt wallet" feature.

I'm not trying to market Bitcoin.    And I highly doubt my insult would turn people away.  That would be cool if it did though!  If only I had that much power.. lol