i 100% agree with you, but centralizing merchant adoption around bitpay and coinbase (any others?) is not a solution to the problem, it is just building a problem on top of a problem. Real merchant adoption of bitcoin can't happen until the price is more stable, which will probably be when people stop using Bitcoin as a store of value( i am guilty of this) and actually as a method of transacting online.
and guys we have to realize that there will be not much transactions this year at bitcoin accepting cafes or restaurants, maybe few people a months, so we are talking 100.00 maybe 200.00 euro, if there is bitcoin conferance in the city maybe more. So there is not so much risk for this small bussines to accepted and take a small risk or maybe big reward. coinbase and bitpay are concentrating on the big fishes, they are not much interested in small merchants, they just made a website for them and they charge 1% transaction fee for useing it, i think they should be free solution to this
Well, with 1% fee it's still cheaper than the card networks. However I understand that some businesses (like cafés) are get paid mainly in cash, where they don't have to pay any transaction fees - so it might seem like they're losing money.
But when you look at the problem, you'll notice accepting Bitcoin, even with a 1% fee, will drive customers to your business (maybe not many yet, but definitely some) which it would never had otherwise had - so that 1% is basically nothing compared to not having had those sales to start with.
