1) My debit card doesn't cost me anything to use. Buying Bitcoin costs me 1% or more to get and that's if the price hasn't crashed by the time it clears Coinbase. So, accepting all that risk, paying more and maybe getting a discount, is a non-starter.
As with any new technology, there will be early adopters, late adopters, and everyone-in-between adopters. You're looking at things from the viewpoint of those who will be the late adopters. Fine, someone's gotta be last. The early adopters will think that sure, the price may crash, but then again it may go up too, the latter being more likely. And as time goes on, the volatility will decrease. You say
maybe getting a discount. In fact they'll either get one or they won't, and if they do, they'll know it. The merchant, who HATES paying credit card fees, is incentivized to
market bitcoin to them so that the merchant can avoid the credit card fees.
2) Porn? Is that really the best you can come up with.
It's not the only example I can come up with. But it's a damn good one. So in the words of Ron Burgundy:
"Don't pretend that you're not impressed!" ....
PS It's a good example for two reasons:
1) Easy to understand the motivation for someone using bitcoin. No esoteric economic arguments needed. In fact, I think even Dogecoin community would get it ...
Such motivation. Much privacy. Wow. 2) Historically, much of the early growth of the Internet was through porn. Like it or not, if it catches on in the porn industry, it helps lay the groundwork for more mainstream uses.
I looking at things from a realistic point of view. You're basing your assumptions on emotions. What you "hope" will happen, so you can benefit. What merchant wouldn't love to avoid fees? That's a no brainer but what consumer wants to transact without consumer protections and chargeback abilities when merchants don't deliver? What consumer what's to spend 1% up to 10% just to obtain Bitcoins to spend them. Nobody, just people who want Bitcoin to go to the "moon". And they aren't really using them to purchase anyway. They are holding, right?
If porn is the best you can do, that can be accomplished much easier with much more abundant currencies like Dogecoin, for example or a combination of cheaper and more abundant altcoins. Access is what will make these currencies useful and thus valuable. Not the other way around. Bitcoin will likely survive for the handful of people who have them. That's great...but chances of Bitcoin becoming a global currency: 0
The only thing that "impresses" me about Bitcoin, is it solved the double-spend problem. But now we know how to duplicate that. Bitcoin as a transactional currency, is not impressive, in fact it's a little embarrassing that we're still talking about the 1.0 version of cryptocurrency. We already have better options...it's coming time to move on. Meaning the general public, the only people that actually matter in deciding what will become adopted.
