And right there is the crux of your disconnect from the general population. The vast majority of people don't view fraud protection as a racket; it doesn't cost them anything as far as they are aware and the benefits are pretty clear, especially compared with bitcoin where permanent loss of funds because of hackers or arbitrary technical problems is a real risk.

> then consider someone who wants to buy a $15,000 Rolex or gold bar online or place a $5,000 bet on a football game starting in 3 minutes.

Ummm, those all sound like pretty unusual use-cases that the general population has no use for. I never said bitcoin was useless so you can stop proselytizing, all I said was that credit cards are clearly much safer than bitcoin if you define safe to mean "protects my money from being lost or stolen".

It's just not. It's not easier than swiping a magnetic strip and signing something, or typing in sixteen digits (or using autofill or the site's previously saved CC info) and pressing buy.

It's not good that I can't demand a return or have recourse in the event of fraud. And it's not a benefit that with bitcoin I have to spend the money first (to buy bitcoin) and wonder if it will hold its value, versus just buying stuff when I feel like it on credit and covering the transaction within 30 days at no interest cost.

I know there are a lot of people who really want your above quoted statement to be true. But, for now and the forseeable future, it isn't.

So you will replace a payment method that has a method for recourse when you get fucked with one that is completely irreversible? That doesn't make any sense at all.

Even if Paypal or your CC isn't perfect, at least you have some form of recourse. With bitcoin, when you get fucked over, you are completely shit out of luck.

Still not sure how Bitcoin even remotely solves this. If someone steals my wallet and racks up a bill on my credit card there are legal recourses and ways to get my money back. If someone compromises my bitcoin wallet and empties it there is _absolutely no recourse_. Saying I should have protected it better is no better than saying I shouldn't have been mugged and had my wallet taken. In one case I have a chance at recovering funds, in the other I don't.

> What about remittances that cost already poor people enormous amounts of money?

I'm not sure a highly volatile currency that currently requires an expert knowledge of the internet and computing and is only a valid form of payment in a handful of incredibly affluent tech focussed markets solves this in any way.

> What about the more core issue of being in charge of your own money? People in Venezuela, Argentina, Russia, China and Cyprus might have something to say for being able to choose what money they use.

This has been discussed in what's currently the top comment, but Bitcoin is notably less democratic than a large number of government backed currencies. I can vote for a president who will put people in charge of the Fed who share my economic interests, and I think there's reason to trust that process more than an anonymous group of developers and middlemen who are attempting to make the entire process less painful.

> What about accepting payments without relying on credit card companies and middle men like Square and Paypal?

Excluding investing huge capital in hiring a group of developers (whom you are relying on) to develop a solution for you, you're trading that for relying on less proven companies like coinbase, bitpay, coin, etc. Philosophically it may be superior, but I'd trust my money more with Visa than any of the fraudulent bitcoin startups that have disappeared with millions in funds.

> But really when you say 'consumers don't want it', what is that based on and have you ever used bitcoin yourself?

I have used it, and it's pretty awful. I've tried explaining it to non-technical friends and family and they see no value proposition over traditional payments.

> It is so simple and easy I buy everything online with it that I can and it's a breath of fresh air.

When my options to get my paycheck to bitcoin are a) wait a week for a website I'm forced to trust to process my money or b) meet a guy in a coffee shop with a large amount of cash on me and have him transfer the bitcoin to me. I'd hardly call that a "simple" nor "easy" process, especially when the merchant then has to go through an equally difficult process to get the funds in a usable currency for things like taxes and payroll.

Bitcoin may be an interesting development in digital currency and blockchain is undoubtably a promising technology, but claiming that for most users bitcoin is more reliable, safe, and easier than traditional payments is, to be frank, laughable.

Um, no. When I spend bitcoin, I'm not exposing myself to the risk of someone having complete access to my account. When I use a debit card I am. Huge difference.

> What's the difference between that and a post-it?

Post it notes burn. Also, cryptosteel is only for the security words. It still won't give access to my wallet's private key.

> If bitcoin becomes currency like you hope, you're going to run into the same problems, security versus convenience

First, it already is a currency. Second, the security model of bitcoin is infinitely better than that of a bank.

Unlikely in a system where transactions are irreversible by design. If a credit card transaction is suspicious, the banks will hold the funds, or refuse the transfer. The only way to have this work with bitcoin would be if you paid the bank rather than paying the seller - in which case you're just reproducing the existing credit card system with extra complexity.

> Isn't it kind of the same as a debit card? If you put your monthly allowance, or weekly allowance in your pay wallet, what's the problem? If you have a huge amount of bitcoins in 1 address that's made for paying people & isn't in cold storage, you are doing it wrong. Same with regular cash.

Sure; my point was that there's no advantage for bitcoin here, not that it's any worse than the other options.

> Bitcoin wasn't designed for criminals only. Sure, it has certain advantages for criminals. But it has a lot of other pros too. International transactions take days compared to bitcoin transactions, and are a hell of a lot cheaper too.

That's the judgement we have to make. My view is that the advantages for criminals are much bigger than the advantages for non-criminals, and so a world with a thriving bitcoin economy is, on the whole, worse than a world without one.

Because some people insist on waiting for the payment to settle before actually providing the services, although it's not nearly as common as it used to be.

This is just completely unrealistic with credit cards where settlement times are far longer than with bitcoin, days or months.

>Wherever you want to lay the blame (anywhere but bitcoin) it's a problem for anyone using bitcoin, making it more useless than (not "immensely superior" to, as claimed) using a credit card or Paypal, which makes it a problem for bitcoin.

I don't know, I use bitcoins to pay for things regularly and pretty much everyone accepts zero-confirmation transactions nowadays (which is pretty much the same as accepting credit card payments, except the settlement will most likely take less than an hour).

I used to think the same, but there is a coffee / snack shop nearby that accepts bitcoin/bcash/ethereum, and offers $1 off if you pay with it. A surprising number of people pay via cryptocurrency.

For a small purchase like that, cryptocurrency is perfect. Amounts are small enough that you don't need to wait for blockchain confirmations, risk is low. Credit card fees are high in-part because they are providing that fraud protection. For a purchase like this, both the merchant and I save money by not having to worry about transaction reversals and fraud.

If you're paying a contractor it's easier and more reliable than paypal and the fees are a fixed amount of money, not a percent like credit card merchants. Plus the lightning network is rolling out.

> BitCoin is not useful as a store of value; the price is incredibly unstable and open to manipulation.

agreed, currently the case, however there is increasing amount of research in stable coins ( makerdao and basecoin, not tether)

> BitCoin is not secure; if you're a victim of fraud there's no recourse. There have been so many heists I can't even keep track of them all.

bitcoin has never been hacked. On the contrast there are tons of examples of paypal and banks locking up funds from individuals, no way to do that on bitcoin

> It's not private; if your wallet address is ever associated with you, everything you ever did is laid out for all to see.

the official client recommends using a new address for each payment you receive and send, also coins like monero exist for full private

As a side comment, just two hours ago I paid an IPTV service with BTC using coinpayments.net and it was easy (scan QR code and click send) and quite fast (at first I was going to pay for BCH because usually it is faster, but I only had BTC in my wallet).

Really cool as payments technology if you tell me.

I disagree, and think there is some observation bias going on here. I've been using a Bitcoin-linked debit card for a couple of years now, and take payment in Bitcoin for odd jobs I do for people online. I also always list that I accept Bitcoin when I post things for sale on Craigslist and other "classifieds" sites, and probably 10% of people use it for payment now. I've had several people buy things from me on Craigslist from across the country and the world that I wouldn't have accepted otherwise due to payments fraud. I'm happy to ship a $400 fountain pen to a buyer in Lagos (which I've done!) if they pay in Bitcoin, but I'd never consider doing so if they used any other payment method for fear of fraud.

I don't see anyone posting about everyday uses, but they do seem to be happening.

> People only worried about how high it can go

The only time I really think about the current price of Bitcoin is when it's in a period of volatility. Otherwise it seems to be consistently slightly deflationary, which is exactly what I expect it will be long-term.

This suggests you haven't tried paying with bitcoin. Sure, you lose all those things you get with creditcards, but for me some advantages that bitcoin offers over credit cards (and yes I'm a consumer too) are more important, such us:

- I'm not afraid that any of the providers where I have bought things gets hacked, because my identity and payment details is not kept by them.

- Paying with bitcoin is so much easier, I don't need to copy stupid numbers from a card with my keyboard ever again.

- I don't need to check my bank account from time to time to see if I had charges that don't correspond to things I didn't buy.

- I'm not afraid of bank commissions that especially take place when I pay for things abroad.

These are the little things that will make a universal-worldwide-digital-coin succeed. Could be that this coin is bitcoin, or other one.

You already listed one other reason - drugs.

> What would be the point in buying Bitcoin with cash/card only to use it on a service that also accepts cash/card?

Only a handful of online services sell gift cards through brick and mortar stores that you can actually purchase with cash. As for the point of not using a card - my main interests in bitcoin as it stands today are: - I don't have to share my identity with the service I'm purchasing from (to validate the credit card), increasing my privacy and anonymity. - Like cash, it limits the risk of fraud and dark patterns (hidden fees, reoccurring charges that you weren't expecting, outright fraudulent charges, etc. don't simply auto-deduct from your account - although you can still not get the service you paid for.)

Well done, friction-free micro transactions for some services (e.g. news websites) might actually convince me to start using bitcoin regularly. Of course, that hasn't happened yet - nor do I know that it will happen with e.g. the problems with dust etc.

Yes, this can be a real problem when traveling.

> Bitcoin always works …

This is obviously a completely bullshit statement. Bitcoin almost never works in places where credit cards or ‘fiat’ are accepted.

> If a person thinks that fiat payments work well, he hasn't really travelled yet to different cultures.

‘Fiat payments’ covers everything from the ATM network to cash to western union to Hawala. All aspects of fiat payments indeed have problems.

However the idea that today, Bitcoin solves these problems outside of a tiny fraction of contrived cases is a delusional fantasy.

Almost nobody in the world trades in Bitcoin. Almost everybody in the world trades in ‘fiat’.

Are you sure? There were a lot of Bitcoin wallet servers compromised lately. I guess that for a really well secured wallet server you have to pay something. In case of thefts, people will want some kind of insurance and so on.

Bitcoin, compared to credit cards, functions as a decentralized system. Is it really cheaper than centralized system in terms of transaction costs? I mean computing power, required hardware and software.

So I buy a service with Bitcoin and it ends up being fraudulent, how do I get my Bitcoins back?

If I buy a service with my credit card and it ends up being fraudulent, how difficult is for me to get the charges reversed?

One of them relies on the fraudster having a change in heart and the other may not necessarily be fun but is more than likely to happen.

So you're saying that, pessimistically, all Bitcoin could do is disrupt the credit/debit card companies? That's very pessimistic, and still a very big deal.

That's a pretty big conclusion to jump to. People using the currency have more of a burden to protect their bitcoins from hackers, I'll admit, but it is not fair to blanket describe the currency as insecure because of the practices of some lousy companies.

> Bitcoins are data, and data is very easily lost. What if the hard drive with your wallet on it fails?

Did you read about "paper wallets" like I mentioned? It's not a problem for most people, but if it's a problem for you, there are ways to avoid it.

> Bitcoin is much less convenient than cash and credit cards. Nobody accepts bitcoin as payment.

Is this really your argument against bitcoin individually? What you described applies to pretty much any currency in its infancy. Either way, my defense of bitcoin's convenience is of the mechanisms of exchanging them, not something as arbitrary as acceptance. You seem to be clasping to straws.

> The bitcoin distribution system is a big problem. Whatever you call it, it is an unfair and unstable system where early adopters profit when more people adopt the currency, and late adopters end up holding a risky asset with unstable value.

Hilarious. Can you give me one reason your last sentence didn't just describe an investment? Do you realize any other stock, commodity or currency will also naturally favor early adopters, because they can buy something when it's low and sell when it's high? What drawbacks could there possibly be for a system like that anyway?

I also don't understand what you mean by "bitcoin distribution system", would you like to clarify?

I'm not, and it's irrelevant because I only have a tiny fraction of my net worth in easily-accessible Bitcoin at any given time.

I'm not advocating replacing bank accounts with Bitcoin, I'm just showing that Bitcoin does solve real problems that traditional payment processors cannot or will not solve.