So far, 1671 people have manage to sign up for the rating system on #bitcoin-otc. Looks like it's doable.
I have no problem learning how to use it, but would others do too is the question.
That sounds kind of arrogant. So you're saying YOU could do it, but others are too stupid, so why even bother? Good luck finding customers with that attitude.
No, that's not what I said.
My opinion is that the system is just way too complex for a simple rating system.
I can bet you, out of every 1000 people you ask randomly, nobody even know what the heck is gpg identity.
You also proved it yourself. "so far, 1671 people have manage to sign up". WOW, a full 1671 people out of a global internet user base of billions.
Like I said, nothing is wrong with the system, I am just saying it is too complex for 99.99% of the population.
Uh, we're comparing it against the bitcoin population, not the global internet one. A lot more than 1671 people actually use GPG in the broader tech world. 1671 is bitcoin-otc users, which considering that the IRC channel only contains around 300 people at any given time, isn't all that bad.
The reason for gpg is simply to be able to verify that you are indeed who you say you are. There are other ways of doing this, but they usually involve a trusted third party to broker the transaction so that you can associate the counterparty in your transaction to their reputation. On IRC, if some dude pops up claiming to be copumpkin and pointing at his (my) WOT reputation online, it could easily just be some web IRC user who browsed the WOT listing and picked someone with decent ratings. They could then proceed to scam people under my name, thereby not only scamming the users but destroying my reputation. We therefore require people to prove, using GPG, that they are indeed who they say they are. Unfortunately, this scheme still currently revolves around a trusted third party (nanotube and his bot gribble), but the system doesn't need to, in theory. I'd posit that a decentralized cryptographic system like GPG is the "natural" way to add optional identity and reputation to a decentralized and anonymous currency like bitcoin. And as another poster has already pointed out, all your arguments against GPG could easily be thrown at bitcoin too.