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Most of this seems quite balanced and objective. It's a good post. That said, I think it still massively underestimates the challenge of getting consumers to wa
by jfoster 12y ago
Most of this seems quite balanced and objective. It's a good post. That said, I think it still massively underestimates the challenge of getting consumers to want to use bitcoin. I think that is the biggest problem bitcoin faces. This suggests that obtaining and storing bitcoins are barriers, but I think those would be trivially solved if only consumers had a major desire to pay for stuff with bitcoin.
Bitcoin can't go mainstream unless it has a system of incentives that appeal to consumers who don't care about the ideology of it. Who will create that system of incentives? I confess little knowledge of the protocol, but I think it is most likely to emerge from a PayPal-like payments company, and funded through transaction fees. The problem is that when a single company is providing those incentives and taking transaction fees, it looks quite similar to credit card companies (so then what was the point of bitcoin?), which is the direction I initially thought the article was heading in.
- aaron-lebo 12y agoI'm in total agreement, and almost went back and edited the article to reflect that, but I figured it is another topic entirely. Outside of those who are just looking to get rich, those excited about Bitcoin are in it for largely ideological reasons: independence (in libertarian terms) and privacy. However, looking at how the US votes and what services they used (such as Facebook), I don't think the average person cares too much about either. Any currency with true anonymity that got big enough would probably be outlawed, too. When you get past that, Bitcoin isn't more efficient than the current system, it isn't more convenient, and there's not really a single thing it does better for most people. There's not a huge selling point for the general public. You are are right that some service could come along which fits the right niche, but it doesn't seem to be here yet.
- natrius 12y agoThe incentive to use Bitcoin is near-zero transaction fees. Merchants can and do share those savings with customers. Any future where Bitcoin fails will still have near-zero transaction fees because the technology exists to enable that today. Describing such a future without describing what has outcompeted Bitcoin seems incomplete.
- jfoster 12y agoConsumers expect chargebacks to be an option, and if their bank account gets compromised, for the bank to reimburse. That stuff is possible (AFAIK) on top of bitcoin, but it needs to be funded somehow. I think that if bitcoin goes mainstream, the fees may end up looking similar to existing payment solutions.