Topic: The reality of BTC that too many (and myself) dont want to believe. (Read 8267 times)

Please don't disparage the good old aunt Compuserve. She was always very liberal with the access. Too bad this was never marketed and stayed a Pulcinella's secret to the very end. May she rest in peace.

http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialPPP-compuserve.html

BBS's and the internet were not the same, though naturally BBS operators were some of the first to provide something of a gateway to the Internet.  One of the providers (perhaps Comupserve?) was reluctant to allow users out of their domain so I quit them and went with a shell provider.  http had only recently come on the scene and was no 'big' like gopher.  Some company (Tymenet or some such) allowed free phone access after hours for some reason so upgraded my 300 baud modem to a 2400 baud (C64 computer) and I was never happier.

Bitcoin is a protocol. We just need a Steve Jobs to make it accessable for our moms 

Give it time. It always does.

i have many good memories being a kid (7-8) dialing into BBSes that you found the numbers on from the free Computer User newspapers.  2400 baud was the shit.  then trying to download a bmp of some girl in a swimsuit would take like 30 minutes.  or more, but i wasn't complaining.  then my parents got Prodigy...it sucked. 

bitcoin still seems to me at that fun renegade 2400 baud stage and thats why i like it

There are already glimpses of how bitcoin may function in the future.

Anyone who's played satoshi dice directly from within blockchain wallet can see immediately how easy using bitcoin could be. There's no copying or pasting, no opening multiple tabs, no addresses to double check. It all happens seamlessly from within the wallet.

I think people running wallet services have more to offer than just banking, and have big opportunities for making money out of their 'free' services.
I suspect these services may eventually become the yahoos, aols and googles of the future - that's why people were willing to invest in Coinbase, becasue once they control a substantial part of the bitcoin universe they can integrate services directly into the wallet.

97% of all usd that people use is digital already.  If bitcoin could penetrate even 10% of that it would be disruption.

If local banks can get on board, local shops, and a btc credit card can be used...it'll increase in popularity.

As it stands right now, yes there are "ease of use" hurdles.  That can be overcome with the proper entrepreneurship of new companies.

i really have a problem with threads like these where Bitcoin skeptics put up a provocative negative title but don't bother to respond to multiple counterarguments which clearly challenge their original supposition like any responsible libelist would do.  it's clear, to me at least, that the author means to only catch attention from newbies not knowing any better while also knowing that he doesn't have clear arguments to back up his claims.  in situations like these, the thread should be moved immediately to the Off-Topic forum.  i see this happening more and more as the price rises although not nearly as bad yet as last summer.

Ya, bitcoin has really come a long way. It was just a year and a half ago where there was still an unclaimed bounty to figure out how to spend when all you have is a private key, for instance:

 - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.51986

But Bicoin has a lot further way to go to catch up to the ease of use and security of its competitors.

Being an open source project with no organization pursuing a vision and a budget to execute on it, it is then absolutely amazing what has been built for Bitcoin already.  But bitcoin isn't the only payment system to end up here, late 2012, without having all the problems solved.  The retail payments industry has attracted positively enormous amounts of funding and there really isn't any one model that is gaining traction.  Because Bitcoin can basically copy whatever methods work for others, not being the first isn't necessarily a huge problem.

For the non-technical end-user security issue, the resolution to that will probably be something along the lines of what Square is offering with their "pay with your name" retail payments service.     This service uses the concept of geo-fencing.  Meaning that a mobile app's function varies based on location.  With "pay with your name", the backend host knows where the customer is (location based service on the user's mobile) so simply being present (within the geofence for that merchant) gives authorization allowing a merchant to perform a charge up to some level (e.g., purchases up to $20 at a Starbucks).  

Sure this is a centralized system but so are hosted (shared) EWallets (Coinbase, Paytunia, Easywallet) and there aren't many complaints by those users.

The great thing about this is that nobody is forced to follow "the officlal method".  There are methods of holding and using bitcoins that works for me that you wouldn't want to use because your tradeoff between convenience and security might be different.    The financial service whose threat model mandates they use M of N signing for their cold wallet uses the exact same Bitcoin network as does the teenage patron at a coffee shop who pays using a mobile phone.

And NNTP was the biggest time waster instead of todays forums.

and 2400 baud IIRC

In 1990 internet was Gopher, Compuserve and BBS. First web browser - 1993. Millions of kids - 1997.

False. Basic computer user will use sites like CoinBase.com and for them Bitcoin is instantly as easy as Paypal.  Log in, send money, receive money.

Don't let the fact that Bitcoin enables an array of other, more complicated, uses deter you from realizing how darn easy it is to simply send and receive BTC from an ewallet. Don't let the complexities of the mechanics inside an combustion engine deter you from realizing the ease of using a car.

I think that you are describing computing as it exists today.  I think that you are also describing Bitcoin as of today as well, which admittedly lacks most of the innovations in security you refer to of the past several hundred years.  EG it really is like carrying a round gold coins on your hard drive.

Then again EVERYTHING you mentioned as a drawback has largely already been solved by modern banking/financial services.  Its just that no mainline companies have brought these innovations to Bitcoin.  You just have to have A LITTLE imagination.  

There was a time when people mostly used gold and silver coins in everyday commerce.  The rise of industry and large organizations brought about the need for better payment systems (more secure, both in terms of not having to carry large sums of coins to settle accounts etc.)   So checks and bank notes were introduced years ago.  In fact the Chinese are believed to be the first to use bank notes in the 9th century.  In fact, when Marco Polo found his way to China he brought them back to europe with him because he thought no one would believe him.

You will in the future be able to place your bitcoins on deposit with a financial institution.  You can spend them with the equivalent of a visa or mastercard.  Visa and Mastercard  will charge moderate fees for transactions (probably lower once Bitcoin breaks the monopoly on PMT services).  They will have zero liability policies with respect to fraud.

Today MOST of the money in circulation relies on similar types of trust.  In fact there's something like only $1500 of actual paper cash per american, with about half of that oversees in the hands foreigners.  We already have a mostly cashless society.

You have to use your imagination.  You fail to see how the whole system has already solved all the problems you bring up.

Yeah, I honestly can't decide if I think the bitcoin is currently equivalent to the "internet" in 1980 or 1990. The core theoretical developments, proof-of-concept software dev, and initial building of services on top of the core platform is all done. There's a fervent community of supporters, many of whom are very bright and dedicated. That's 1980 internet. Are we beyond that? I don't know... There are bunch of add-on services, but total number of users is still thin (in 1990, millions of kids (eg, ~10yr olds) were using the internet....that is not true of bitcoin right now).

Regardless, the development cycle is probably shorter these days.

I'll let someone else answer the "usability" hysteria, which is mostly true, and not very relevant:

"I predict that Bitcoin will reach usability sometime around 2019. I base that prediction on earlier disruption technologies, where blogging started appearing in 1994 and reached mainstream adoption in 2004; file sharing started in 1989 over the net and Napster hit in 1999. You had streaming video 1995, mainly porn sites streaming animated gifs, what was then tip of the spear technology; Youtube was founded 2005 and just swept the floor with everyone else just because they were usable. This is not something bad; it is just an observation that it takes ten years to get a disruptive technology from inception to becoming so easy to use that it reaches mainline adoption." - Rick Falkvinge

Here is what I think:

Your point was proven a few posts ago..↓

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.1109993

How difficult is bitcoin to use really ?

Say I want to set up a friend to use MultiBit on a Windows machine, send them some BTC and get them to spend it online.

Let's start with a piping hot cup of coffee that is still too hot for us to drink.

Setup
1) They download an installer from multibit.org's main page, double click it and then it is click-click-click and accept the licence. Done in a couple of minutes.
2) They double click the MultiBit icon. There is a wallet all made for them. Fast catchup ensures they are synced to the network in less than a minute.
3) The first time MultiBit is opened they get a friendly welcome screen.

Get some bitcoin
1) To request some BTC, click on the Request tab. Let's press the Zoom button so that their onscreen QR code fills the screen. This makes it easier for me to zap it with my smartphone.
2) I zap the QR code and then send them some BTC from my phone's bitcoin app.
3) They receive it in a few seconds. I will then explain to them about confirmations and show them the Transactions help with the confirmation icons.

Our coffee has now cooled down enough for us to enjoy at a perfect temperature whilst we wait for the first confirmation.

Spending
1) Say they want to give multibit.org a donation.
2) Go to multibit.org. Click on the donate link or QR code (bottom right).
3) In MultiBit: accept the payment request. Press Send. Confirm the Send.


When encrypted wallets come in, they will have to do 'File | Add Password' and follow a short screen of instructions to encrypt their wallet(s). Then on a Send they must enter the wallet's password.

It is no more difficult to use than online banking.

This really shows your ignorance. Do you realize that making something illegal does not suddenly make the masses stop doing it? People did not stop smoking pot because it was illegal, they can't even keep drugs out of prisons.

Prohibition does not work, it never has. Not even once.

And don't forget: We needed porn to prove that e-commerce is viable.

Despite tainting the reputation of Bitcoin, that is pretty much what Silk Road is doing for Bitcoin right now.