Bitcoin Forum

EDIT:
Here is the result of all your input guys
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=707114.0
------------------------------------------------------------


This would be the topic of our next video from our educational series. We want to give the people plenty of good reasons why bitcoin is better and in which scenarios.
Naturally we want to crowd source the ideas as we will never be able to figure out all the angles that a community could.

So, please post below your reason to use bitcoins instead of dollars or credit card. Some of those will be used in the video.


If you are not familiar with our work, here is what we have produced so far:
 

• The first one "Finally a simple answer of what is Bitcoin!" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWYVktImeTk
• The second "Is Bitcoin a Ponzi?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kImBgWDgIlA
• The 3rd "Does Bitcoin have an intrinsic value?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R3Zg1KL_KE
• the 4th "Why bitcoin transactions are so slow and why there is a huge risk of double spending?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrvinzeAymg[/b]

If you like what we are doing you can support it by sharing the videos.
If you want your company featured in the next one, you can bid for that right now: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=680624.0

IMHO it is way too early to try and lure ordinary people into bitcoins. People with technical knowledge who have been into bitcoins for years still fail at keeping their coins secure. The technology simply isn't ready for the masses yet. If too many people bet burned by being pushed into this too early it will backfire on us all.

My simple answer is that, every time you use your credit card, you're going to pay a heinous interest fee if you don't pay off the credit card right away. When you use cash, that's time you waste while the cashier counts it and makes change. (Those seconds add up, folks.) With Bitcoin, you can keep it in a mobile wallet and have all the convenience of paying quickly just by scanning a QR code with none of the interest rate. If you're watching your budget, you can simply convert some of your dollars into Bitcoin before you go into a store that accepts Bitcoin, and then however much is in your mobile wallet is how much you have to spend.

where do ordinary people go to find out things for themselves?  Google > technical stuff to read > ooh videos with the word dummies in it.  Also, many months and years from now, people will still be asking these questions.  I like the focus here.  Keep up the great work.  Plus, the porn/fake glasses are hilarious.

edit:  it's really hard to send cash really fast really far.  Especially micro payments.

I don't use dollars because:
They aren't backed by anything
They can be used to buy drugs
They can be stolen

Bitcoin is in its starting stages now. You can continue to use your USD but soon they will be worth squat, pretty close to worthless now.

The federal reserve system is flawed and has no backing anymore. Bitcoin allows regulation on the system fiat won't allow.

No, you can't use your dollars fine. Go to Canada, can you use your dollars there? Can you go to London and use your dollars there? How would you even get a place to exchange your money without at least having a bit of money in the first place to rent a tax / whatever you need to get around.

Also, exchanging your money technically converted it into something that isn't dollars, who wants NK fun bucks? eh?

the same can be said for bitcoin too?

Perhaps an equally important question is:
"Why use dollars when my bitcoins are working just fine for me?"

Regardless, here are some reasons a merchant might prefer to accept bitcoins:

• Lower transaction costs
• No chargebacks
• Reduces fraud
• Increased anonymity for their customers
• No need to inform a customer that their card has been denied
• Deflationary nature increases likelihood that a sale in the present will be worth more to them in the future
• Protects their customer from dishonest employees that might try to steal credit card info
• Protects the company against dishonest employees that might try to steal cash from the cash register

And here are some reasons why a customer might prefer to pay with bitcoins:

• Lower transaction costs
• Reduces fraud
• Reduces risk of identity theft and theft of credit card info
• Funds protected against being frozen or seized
• Deflationary nature increases likelihood that bitcoins acquired in the past will provide greater value in the present
• Inconvenient and expensive to convert your bitcoin investment into dollars in order to spend any of it.  Far more convenient to simply spend it directly (try that with your stock investment)

The only way it's ever going to be secure enough for regular people is through them trusting third parties. Something like Circle(if it ever comes) or Coinbase.

Unless anyone is aware of decentralised ways to make bitcoin secure and easy to use for regular people?

Well the habit is dollars, so we are trying to break that.
Also merchants will accept whatever their customers prefer, so I believe the key is to have the customers use them.
Merchant adoption seems to be way ahead of consumer adoption anyway.

All your points are really helpful though :)

This statement:


Seems to prove that this statement is not entirely true:


Merchants can encourage their customers to use the payment method that is better for the merchant.

They can do this by advertising the payment method (signs in the window and at the payment location, posters, billboards, radio ads, television ads, product placement in entertainment media, etc), which increases awareness and visibility.

They can also do this by offering cheaper pricing for the preferred payment method, which creates a financial incentive for the customer.

It's also important to keep in mind that merchants are also customers.  Merchants need to pay suppliers.  They also earn an income and use that income as customers for other merchants.  As merchants see the benefits of accepting bitcoins, they are likely to encourage other merchants to do the same so that they can spend the bitcoins they are receiving.

No, and that's why:

It can't inflate.
It can't be burned, buried, hidden. ( Not talking about paper wallets, but the code itself. )
More people in the world have a PC than money (wont go deeper into this..), which makes it accessible everywhere and it doesn't cost a lot to move "a ton" of BTC
It's freedom. Not "In "God" we trust". You can't solve "God's" problem, but you can solve bitcoin's.

It's clean air.


People gonna talk about drug trafficking, prostitution, guns. "You can buy drugs with bitcoins".

I'm already buying drugs ("legal" ones)
with FIAT.


-KSMC



EDIT:

RAWR.

Who's this girl?

She makes me wanna know more about bitcoin.

Just like email, you do not need to require your family to use the software or the same service provider. Allow them to use as they like. It was not a problem; they are all compatible because they use the same open technologies. Bitcoin network never sleeps, even during the holidays too!

International payment systems are Easy and Fast

Bitcoin can be transferred to the Indonesian example of America in less than 10 minutes. There is no bank that slows down the process, the costs, or the freezing of funds. You can pay your neighbor as you would pay for a family member in another country.

Deflationary nature increases likelihood that bitcoins acquired in the past will provide greater value in the present combined with the fiat debt at insane levels all over the world.
In other words, Bitcoin has very weak competition.

- deflation vs inflationary dollar
- freedom to spend them anywhere, you can even donate to wikileaks if you choose so
- your smartphone can be your bank
- you can bet in provably fair casinos :)

Maybe it's hard to use them for buying/selling things right now, Bitcoin is barely known by the world, just give it time, i can assure you Bitcoin has more advantages than dollars...

So you lose your phone = lose your bank

seems convenient

Im from spain and try to tell me or people here what the fuck bitcoin has solved. Sure it's cool technology and all, but if there are no jobs then what the fuck. Also, people is still people (greedy) so it's not like anyone has ever donated me a single satoshi in my shitty situation. It solves shit nothing for the common poor folk. Now if I was rich, yeah I would benefit from it by moving money around the globe and so on, but yeah, you get my point.

Yes I did read the first post.

No, Bitcoin doesn't solve the fact more and more unemployment will happen due automatization of jobs.

This is going to be a tough video to make convincing.  I love bitcoin but I spend far more dollars than bitcoins.  To me the huge advantage is that bitcoins are perfect for micro payments.  It is expensive to send a few dollars to someone else but bitcoin makes that easy.

I realize that is not much of a selling point, but that is how almost all of my bitcoin has been spent.

Good Luck!

It is fungible. ;)

I find bitcoins much more convenient for online purchases, to be sure. And I absolutely hate giving out my personal information. ;)

May works fine until you you get your credit card cloned, your bank screw with your account and you need some years in the justice to have your money back, and until you calculate how much you spend with all the hidden credit card and bank fees.

If its not enough, try to transfear money abroad, or hire services abroad. Both wire and paypal are expensive, with lots of taxes, and can be charged back.


Nice video and good points

If you don't have back-up, yes, duh. Well if you are so smart that you keep your fortune just on your smartphone and you don't have back-up...you are kinda asking for it right?

About your other point, tell me who donated you an euro in your shitty situation? Is it the medium of exchange fault or the flaw is within people in general?


I mean both your arguments are kinda absurd.

-You don't pay the same huge fees with using CC/DC.
-You don't expose your private information online (to websites that get hacked and CC/DC data leaked) and also less risk for identity theft.
-less bacteria are found on each bitcoin compared to a physical dollar

and when you stock bitcoin ... after 2 years, you can buy a thing with less money.
dollar don't do this ... it's a (hyper) inflation system ! (even now in eurozone...)

Thats why i said bitcoin solves fuck nothing when it comes to the real problen (inequality). If you get there first you get all the stuff, same with BTC.

The way you state it, it's a problem entirely unrelated to the one OP is trying to solve, so your comments on this are kind of irrelevant.

Another area where bitcoin could have big advantages is in international transactions.  Right now to send money to friends and relatives overseas you have to (usually) buy USD, pay a fee to transmit USD, and then they pay a fee to convert USD to local currency.  With bitcoin, minimal fee to send and maybe even a premium when you convert to your local currency via local bitcoins!

Thank you for all those, some really good ones.

Now we need few KILLER ones, not just advantages or conveniences or savings but something that you actually can't do with dollars.
Something that would make even a non techsavy person do the switch?

well bitcoins is a internet currency, so trying to find non internet uses of bitcoin(for the non-tech savvy crowd).. WOW your right, that is a killer challenge and to raise the bar that you want it to not just be an advantage or a convenience of something that can be done with other FIAT methods. wow, nice challenge. now to make a coffee and get my grey cells in gear. im sure there is one example.. give me time.. im sure the amish, or african population that dont use banks (meaning no FIAT) might spring to mind. but first coffee

sip of coffee..
most non-tech savvy and unbanked population:
ok so the amish/native indian population do not believe in being part of the government world, they do not like touching fiat, and although they are getting forced into it for some supplies they cant make themselves. they do not want to touch it, because then they can become taxed by it. so with bitcoin they can send value between their settlements to cousins at large distance without touching a bank or a bank note. now for the problem.. not being tech savvy by choice or religion. how to get them to accept using a smartphone to do it.

slightly techsavvy but unbanked:
imagine a poor family being rejected for a bank account due to bad credit, or something else. (not important why). so its harder for them to get a job because most jobs require pay to be put into a bank account. they cant sell things online and then cash out as again paypal needs a bank account. so being an ebay seller to get an income is out of the question. so the only thing they can do is work cash in hand. but with bitcoin they can change all that. with hundreds of jobs being paid in bitcoins, multiple sites that are ebay-esq. and thy can buy groceries without having to find a way to convert to bank notes

You think is working fine! ... Think about it.

it doesn't have to be only offline :)

Danny, I respect the hell out of honest traders like yourself, but this is bullshit.

Lower transaction cost my ass. Paypal lets me send for free if I want to take the risk in the transaction.. its hard to beat free.
No charge back might be good for merchants but sucks a big one for customers
Reduces fraud? have you looked over scam accusations on the forum? fraud is rampant
Anonymity is not important in 99.9 percent of transactions
deflation is as immoral as inflation... the only thing that changes is who is being robbed.
Far more convenient to simply spend it.. as long as you dont want food or gas.

The truth is there is no good reason to use bitcoin except for illicit purposes and it doesn't do a great job of that.
 

You can use bitcoins to be a part of the elite and to be revolutonary. There's nothing more revolutionary than bitcoin right now.


I kinda agree with a lot of what you just said, but not that last bit. You're completely wrong on that.

Here are your points dissected one by one

• Bitcoin also supports free. Bitoins not moved recently get processed fast even with 0 fee. The fee is there to prevent spam (and initiative for the miners after the rewards run out
• chargebacks are coming with bitcoin too in the form of 2 of 3 multi-sig based escrow. You pay for arbitrate only if there is dispute. Now with paypal you pay fee always
• yes, because people don't use escrow, that will quickly change as more easy to use tools come, they are being developed as we speak
• Anonymity WILL become more important as governments become more intrusive
• With deflation you don't rob anyone, you simply get rewarded for choosing to postpone your consumption
• it has tons of other purpose other than drugs, and obviosly does great job at ordering drugs

Thanks so much for asking that question which adresses the major issue with bitcoin despite all its great advantages:

Hardly anybody uses BTC to buy stuff. Instead it is mostly used to trade ie. to make a profit. But that's not what a currency is good for, not to speak about real money.

People use BTC not like money, they use it as a commodity. As long as this behavior does not change, BTC won't mature into a proper currency.

Why can't it be both a commodity and a currency? People are obviously using and spending bitcoin as the companies that are accepting it are reporting quite large sales in it. Granted I'm sure most people are saving their coins but there's plenty of people who are buying and selling using them and that will only grow.

I think it can not be both because a currency and a commodity serve different purposes in which each of them is better then the other. A currency is good at buying stuff. It's durable, exchangable and so forth (see theory of money for more information on the difference between sound money and currencies, btw).

But: With more and more (hopefully) shops and businesses accepting bitcoin, it will mature more and more into a currency and move further and further away of being used as a commodity. But this will take a few years, I would say. (it took gold and silver a few thousand years, then fiat currency came along ... ;( )

Dollar is still a preferable medium of exchange for many people.

Bitcoin supports free transactions if you wanna wait 3 days.. paypal is instant
Paypal has 0 fees if you send as a gift.. it cost nothing you dont always pay a fee.


I love the deflation bias around here.. inflation robs currency savers, deflation robs currency borrowers.   

Long term project usually factor in inflation and deflation. And smart market participants usually do deal which favor them.

the instant paid ones are still cheaper than paypal
paypal tends to freeze your funds because the weather changed too fast
are you seriosly comparing those 2 things actually? Just that makes the conversation with you pointless

So you don't have to deal with having money stolen from paypal.

I don't think that is why Bitcoin is popular because of paypal issues. its more likely the concept of Bitcoin being virtual and a new currency. But what I think makes it even more popular is that people hate getting screwed over by banks and hate that banks are in control of your own money. thats why I think Bitcoin will succeed and why its better than dollars etc.

You don't need to wait three days with bitcoin if you don't include a TX fee as long as the size of the TX is small enough. The TX fee with bitcoin is ~$0.06 on average regardless so it is close to free.

Paypal may show up on your account instantly however there is still a risk of a reversal/chargeback for several months, while that risk of more or less gone after 6 confirmations with bitcoin.

Besides a payment method, I believe bitcoin can work as an investment similar with gold.

yes, one of the main points for me, that many people miss is that with bitcoin you are finally in control of your own finances.

Interesting start on the Youtube channel, however, I would respectfully suggest a new branding before you get too far with this venture.  

The "FOR DUMMIES" lingo is trademarked by Wiley Publishing, Inc.

Bitcoin For Dummies was available last time I checked. Not sure if they have a catch all trade mark for all ending on dummies?

No your not. The guy who bought 30k of them off the feds is in control, knc is in control, the winklevoss twin are in control. They are in control of the supply and the value of bitcoins. The central authority is play boy millionaires just like the dollar.

Those dollars don't "work for you", there not even yours. They belong to the federal reserve.

I don't think that being "yours" or "not yours" is a big issue when you are paying (and somebody is accepting your payment) say for pizza or real estate. BTC is "virtually yours" but not widely accepted for day-to-day payments.

Winklevoss are in control of 1% of the supply, so what?

the 30k bitcoins are even less than 1%

knc is not the only mining manufacturer at all


so what you are saying exactly?

Yes, definetly.
One of the great things about bitcoin, and what makes it much better option than dollar or some other fiat, is that it can be moved without insane fees.
And, like you said, it has amazing investment area, as it can be used as a store of value.

Anyone talking about bitcoin scepticly has been prooven wrong, now if we could do something more about the safety to prevent dumbos from loosing their wallets, it would be even better.

cheers

Limited supply must top the list, I'd have to say gold would be my preferred alternative to fiat!

Shell money from Timbuktu are even more safe than BTC but is it the right investment? Safety of BTC is mythologized due to the fact that IT infrastructure, PCs are not totally safe.

Many who suffered losses due to investing in Bitcoin even though not understanding the currency. "They do not know when to buy, sell, and so on. Prior investments, are absolutely knowing the intricacies of the investment,

I agree with some of the users.
It's a bit too early to include ordinary people with no knowledge of BTC.
However, I like to use BTC because it's as easy as sending money via paypal.
But there are no transaction fees! :)

(1) Been to a bank on a Friday afternoon? It's maddening.
(2) Safeguarding 1 $100 bill, 3 $50 bills, 17 $20 bills, 7 $10 bills, 13 $5 bills, 25 $1 bills, 34 quarters, 22 dimes, and a buffalo nickel. In a cash register.
(3) How much does it cost to make a penny again? How much effort went into that new $100 design? Money costs more to make than it's worth. Poor business model.
(4) I take your debit card, I have a 1 - 10,000 chance of getting your pin right.

Thank you all for crowd sourcing this! I made a great list of key points to use for the video!
Will post it when it's done.

Why use dollar when my Bitcoins are working just fine for me?

The fact that bitcoin can be moved around the world quickly and nearly free is probably it's biggest advantage. With fiat you will almost always encounter some kind of fee when sending funds even to someone in the same state as you, and generally speaking the farther you need to send a payment, and the more you need to send, the more expensive it is to send the payment.

Here is the result of all your input guys
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=707114.0