Well, it's an alternative payment method, i.e. one people should use if they don't want to pay via PayPal/Google Checkout. E.g. it's for people from outside of

Well, it's an alternative payment method, i.e. one people should use if they don't want to pay via PayPal/Google Checkout. E.g. it's for people from outside of USA. I'll give you an example. I live in Ukraine. When my father wanted to buy something via PayPal, he had to: * get a debit card, which requires going to bank, signing some papers, etc. (Ukrainians often have debit cards for receiving salaries, but those usually have internet payments completely blocked. Ukrainians rarely have credit cards.) * fill it with USD, again going to bank. * register on PayPal site * call bank to unblock internet payments (this requires ~10 minutes) * try paying * call bank again, apparently they haven't unblocked it * try again * Success! Now let's compare that with what I did to get bitcoins in btc-e account: * register on btc-e * select deposit via interkassa * go to cash terminal nearby, deposit UAH * so I got USD on btc-e account and can buy BTC with it So it actually takes less time than dealing with bank cards/PayPal, and isn't expensive (there is, maybe, 2% fee for deposits).