As much as I dislike being cunicula's sockpuppet, bitcoin retail purchases are dead in the water.
Think about PayPal. They have hundreds of millions of individual accounts. They are accepted by hundreds of thousands of online retailers. Yet, do you know of any restaurant where you are able to pay with your PayPal balance using a custom PayPal checkout solution ? That's because even for PayPal the network effects are too faint to compete with the credit card oligopoly.
Instead, PayPal issues it's own credit card, so you are able to pay using your PayPal balance while using the de facto payment standard - credit cards. Bitcon's network effect is thousands of time fainter than PayPal's, it can barely compete with it online. Retail purchases in bitcoin are pure fantasy, IMHO.
Topic: I went to Meze Grill today and paid with VISA - page 4. (Read 7155 times)
Too much hassle for close to zero benefit.
Fixed that for you.
The merchant saves on Visa/Mastercard + banking fees when using bitcoin. Please stop spreading FUD.
Too much hassle for close to zero benefit.
Fixed that for you.
More seriously, think about it. Probably the only option for adoption is to bribe the shop and bribe the shop's costumers. No taxes collected around here so it depends on private charity. Which one of you libertarians is good for a few million USD worth of handouts for 'economic stimulus'?
Oh, don't like handouts do you. Don't like stimulus either. Hmm.. Well, it is up to the 'free market'. We will see how that goes. I will see you in a year still talking up the same alpaca socks.
It's the chicken and egg problem.
I have the same issue with Whiskey Dicks. There are two managers trained to use our Mobile checkout, but if they are not working, they will ask you to pay another way.
Right now it's just our regular meetup group that uses it. But once they see enough demand we can train their whole staff. So my suggestion is bring larger groups when you know the correct staff is there. we gotta walk before we run.
I have the same issue with Whiskey Dicks. There are two managers trained to use our Mobile checkout, but if they are not working, they will ask you to pay another way.
Right now it's just our regular meetup group that uses it. But once they see enough demand we can train their whole staff. So my suggestion is bring larger groups when you know the correct staff is there. we gotta walk before we run.
This is not their fault, this is our fault.
Clearly there are not enough people who pay with Bitcoin to make it profitable for the restaurant to accept the currency. Too much hassle for close to zero benefit.
Clearly there are not enough people who pay with Bitcoin to make it profitable for the restaurant to accept the currency. Too much hassle for close to zero benefit.
I would skip the Meze grill if they don't take bitcoin. When I went with the NYC convention the food was ok but the service was quite bad. NYC is full of excellent restaurants.
Remember the videos of cafe's getting their website removed from their windows after the 2000 dot.com bust?
But notice how the internet has become a key part of life?
But notice how the internet has become a key part of life?
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooo...
Very sad...
Very sad...
Aw.... come on Bruce!!! Where are you. I always wanted to go check out the Grill...
Meze Grill owner found out the truth about Bruce, and opt to punish the whole community by...
No accept Bitcoin for one year!
Aw.... come on Bruce!!! Where are you. I always wanted to go check out the Grill...
Sad to hear that.
Sorry to hear that ...I would be really frustrated if I couldn't pay in bitcoin!
...and the "Bitcoin Accepted Here" sticker isn't there anymore.
How sad, I came all that way to eat and pay with Bitcoin!
It seemed they might have accepted if I pushed them to accept it, part of why they seemed hesitant was that it seemed difficult and cumbersome to them. They still had a full piece of laminated paper with a QR code of their Bitcoin address... but my take on it was the owner wasn't there, and the guy working there was reluctant to deal with processing a Bitcoin transaction and seemed to know nothing more about Bitcoin than the QR code.
Would have been nice if they had Bit-Pay, and have a bitcoin transaction pop up on all their mobile phones at the same time, denominated in dollars, so someone with no clue or interest in BTC could still accept them no matter who was working.
An electronic transaction wouldn't have worked for me anyway since the only BTC I had ready access to were Casascius Coins. I was carrying two 5BTC bitnickels, four 1BTC coins, and a 25BTC coin. The guy there seemed like he had never seen them before, I was very sad he wasn't eager to feed me for them. The food was damn good though, worth going back for even if not for BTC.
I left a couple Casascius Coins in the tip jar. And I gave him the 25 BTC coin (but ripped off the private key, so I just gifted them the medallion and kept the BTC). Figured that was the least I can do for the support they have lent to BTC thus far.
How sad, I came all that way to eat and pay with Bitcoin!
It seemed they might have accepted if I pushed them to accept it, part of why they seemed hesitant was that it seemed difficult and cumbersome to them. They still had a full piece of laminated paper with a QR code of their Bitcoin address... but my take on it was the owner wasn't there, and the guy working there was reluctant to deal with processing a Bitcoin transaction and seemed to know nothing more about Bitcoin than the QR code.
Would have been nice if they had Bit-Pay, and have a bitcoin transaction pop up on all their mobile phones at the same time, denominated in dollars, so someone with no clue or interest in BTC could still accept them no matter who was working.
An electronic transaction wouldn't have worked for me anyway since the only BTC I had ready access to were Casascius Coins. I was carrying two 5BTC bitnickels, four 1BTC coins, and a 25BTC coin. The guy there seemed like he had never seen them before, I was very sad he wasn't eager to feed me for them. The food was damn good though, worth going back for even if not for BTC.
I left a couple Casascius Coins in the tip jar. And I gave him the 25 BTC coin (but ripped off the private key, so I just gifted them the medallion and kept the BTC). Figured that was the least I can do for the support they have lent to BTC thus far.
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