But those fees will be paid by customers when buying the btc with their cards. Same result - more effort.
Oh and the btc providers (e.g. circle) will have to deal with card fraud.
2) You can accept Bitcoin directly for goods and services and never need to go from Fiat to BTC as well.
Well, eventually it will be silly to buy BTC with a credit card.
You are both missing the point. Before we get to that stage people need an incentive to obtain BTC.
3) It isn't an either, or decision as well. If you are a smart consumer you can use BTC's volatility to work for you:
1) Buy BTC at 400 USD = 1% onramp fee = 404usd
2) Later, If Price of BTC is more that 404 use BTC to purchase product, otherwise go to 3
3) Later, If price of BTC is less than 404 use debit card, otherwise go to 2
4) Using this method all products will be cheaper for consumers.
Do you think the average joe will even do this?
!!!
4) Merchants sometimes give discounts to consumers who pay in BTC because they don't pay merchant processing fees and can get BTC without paying the on ramp fee with bitpay.
Again you missed the point!! This is about circle.com. Yes with bank transfers and exchanges its all cool but people don't want to do that. They would however use cards to pay for the coins. Bitpay doesn't given you that.
1) You are talking about the initial onramp fee of 1%. Once you have BTC you don't have this.
YES that fee isn't meaningless. It is still money that you pay.