Bitcoin Forum

So this'll be a mix bag of different concepts and ideas. Take it for what it is and comment if you agree/disagree. But please provide some actual arguments for your opinions.

First up is decentralisation. Bitcoin may never go mainstream in the way say computers or the Internet have.

When it comes to computers you got the big names creating the hardware and also the big names creating the software. It's all very centralized and "safe" for the consumer.

It's the same thing with the Internet. Think of two sites you think represents or are very important to the mainstream. If you ask me I'd say Google and FB. Well both are centralized. Private companies and running these brands and services. Do most people seem to care about this when sharing their info Online? No. They only care for the value they provide.

Now, ask yourself this..would the Internet och computers in general be as mainstream without companies like M$ and Apple? Probably not. In fact I'd argue companies like these have been the driving force behind the mainstream adoption of their businesses rather than the technology itself. It wasn't like people around the globe woke up and were all like "in a dream I had this realisation that I need a service because the current system of doing things is old and this new concept is much better". Companies like M$ created this realisation for us.

People generally don't like to waste energy by re-learning how do something (like making payments). If something works, it works. I watched that clip from letterman where he interviewed Bill Gates and everyone laughed at his visions of the Internet. Well the difference with Bitcoin is that since it's not centralised and therefore can't be controlled by the goverment (neither directly or through companies), leading it to the masses will be much more difficult. In my country, in fact at my very own bank, news stories have been published that people have lost access to their bank accounts due to BTC withdrawals. This is a kind of barrier that might be rather difficult to push through and try to get the rest of society to embrace. Aren't we basically saying here that in order to win over the banks we'll have to make BTC so big that they can't ignore it (or rather, their businesses will die if this happens...like in an revolution against the system)? Considering how much we rely on banks today I'd say it's an extremely heavy resistance we're facing.

And on the same note, it BTC goes up to $10,000 tomorow would you still hold? IF you'd sell I'd argue this only strengthens the theory that we're in for one hell of an upphill battle. I mean even if we, the people on this forum who generally seems to be extremely anti-banks, praise anonymity and so forth would cash out.

I find it very unlikely to wake up one day, turn on the TV (or something like it) and hear the mainstream media praising Bitcoin.
Why? Because:
1. Mainstream media is centralised (=can be controlled by the government). Why would for example USA ever wish to push BTC (which they can't control) before the dollar? IMO we'd need a fully decentralised mass media for this to happen. Meaning if you sit down and talk with your family at the end of the day, and everyone are talking about the same big news, this news would have been delivered by decentralised (but still trustworthy) sources. This is of course already happening a bit, people hear about things on Twitter etc but then again those are privately owned companies driving this movement of alt news sources.
2. Mainstream media only has room for simple "truths" that are easy to digest without too much thinking. BTC is not simple but quite nuanced and gray. It's neither "good or evil". Compare this to say computers or FB which almost everyone would say are fantastic inventions. And whenever something bad/illegal happens on say FB it can be tracked down, removed etc. This way the service itself (which took action) is not to blame but the actual user who did it. But with BTC it's a bit different because we can't single out users like that as easily. If an exchange is hacked then you'll read "Bitcoin Hacked!". I believe this phenomenon isn't only tied with ignorance but also the fact that the BTC service can in fact be misused with zero consequence. Meaning it's Bitcoin's fault...Bitcoin was hacked. See the simple logic going on here? No one's responsible. How could this issue be solved? To expand on this, Bitcoin can as we all know be used to do "bad" things. Yes so can fiat but remember it is the Internet we're talking about as well and tor networks are (at least currently) more tangible and easier to try to hunt down than say two people meeting up in a back alley somewhere. The Internet also allows people to do illegal things on a much bigger and global scale than ever before. It's hard to see how these facts could be ignored by the mass media. But again, perhaps if everything is completely decentralised it'd work. An alternative "twist" to this would be to say well this issue of trust, usabillity, responsibility (if a user is stupid/hack occurs) can be solved by letting services like say bitpay handle all mainstream transactions. But...then we're going back to cecentralisation aren't we? People say don't use Online wallets which is out of your control but IF BTC can go mainstream aren't most people going to use this exact method of storing their value? Which would go completely against the concepts of not needing a third party to overlook everything.

Summary:
I believe Bitcoin might be too smart and disruptive of a technology for it's own good. Or at least to be able to be digested by the mainstream.
I'm starting to think the future of BTC might still be "underground" but still successful, like in poker/gambling sites, adult content or other services where anonymity is naturally sought after. Disagree? Why?

Clifford Stoll in 1995: http://www.newsweek.com/clifford-stoll-why-web-wont-be-nirvana-185306

Paul Krugman in 1998: "By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.": http://web.archive.org/web/19980610100009/www.redherring.com/mag/issue55/economics.html

Letterman interviewing Bill Gates in 1995, wondering why people would ever want a computer in their home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz6IQX7uDk4

Bitcoin itself may not go mainstream, but the blockchain idea definitely will. This is going to be a revolution, and 10 years from now you will be remembering these early days and realize you never expected to work out this way.

I imagine all those using Netscape had no idea what it would be like when Android phones would arrive.

Fiat Credit Card System : 5-8% of fee on ALL transaction + cost of "asking agreement" of each transaction + LOAN of credit card POS.
Movie "the rise and rise of bitcoin" explain this very easly in a supermarket.

Bitcoin : 0,0001 BTC for each transaction ( http://bitcoinfees.com/ ) + Wifi (fix cost) + Personal Phone to monitoring transaction (3x less than a POS cost).


Why merchand want to pay more to have more problems ?
That's why Apple lauch ApplePay, too ... because many of (good and real) customers have a smartphone.

OP, we all have individual ideas why Bitcoin will succeed or fail. But we are just men(gender neutral), it's really a gamble. It will either or will not. Not to crush your "hopes", but it's just your opinion, a single man out of 2 billion people using the internet(and the earth has 7+).

+1

Thanks investing in Bitcoin on the beggining we're part of internet revolution. Imagine that you can build whole services, applications and projects copletly decentralized, anonymous and transparent.

internet 2.0

Dont forget the fees for converting BTC<->fiat and all the KYC hassle.
Dont forget the "fees" you pay because of price declining.
Bitcoin is wonderful but its not magic.

Read those, actually even referred to one of them in OP. ;) These links don't answer the actual concerns I was talking about in the post.


Yes, perhaps. I was mainly thinking about BTC the currency as it exists today. Though I guess I could see arguments I made apply to other uses of the blockchain as well?


Yes of course. But I also think it's never a bad idea to discuss and analyze things that matter to us. BTC does matter to me since I've invested a lot of time into it. This right here is the biggest place on earth for Bitcoin discussion. So I fully expect someone who's also interested in the subject of mainstream adoption to read and argue against the points I've made. This is the reason for any topic to exist.


I can only tell you about my own reason for raising these concerns (and hopefully get some kind of response to them). Though it's off-topic and quite irrelevant. It's because I care about BTC and everything it stands for but I'm starting to have some doubts about this whole "going mainstream 20XX" idea floating around. I've yet to find any answers to the arguments I've layed down in the OP. This worries me frankly. Is this the kind of feedback I can expect? The argument here is mainly: based on the things I bring up in the OP, doesn't it seem like Bitcoin in fact is not meant for mainstream usage? Or that it'll at very least be a massive upphill battle compared to things we compare it to today like the Internet?

The fact this is a new account I'm posting from means nothing except that I like to stay anonymous. If you indeed choose to ignore everything I argue in the OP and just focus on my post count instead then I guess you're free to do so. But it won't take the discussion anywhere.

It'd be interesting if anyone would wish to comment the concerns mentioned in the OP.

1) Bank take fee when you miss (or not ... regular bank in Europe take money even from a private account ... because they can to allow people to keep money on account).

2) You pay the credit card (48 USD per year, generaly ...)

3) I agree but the cost of transaction are known by the bidder in Bitcoin (and that is good for bitcoin network transparency).

I wonder why do we have so many new people joining and making these kinds of post everyday.

Excellent finds.

The success of btc is not 100% tied to the price. Btc could be perfectly successful with the mainstream (in the sense that millions use it like email or fb) regardless of the volatility and 'final' price level.
Right now that seems crazy, but it's due to the huge bias of people on this forum who see btc as an investment and tie its success to a high price. Whether btc settles on some stable price or it fluctuates wildly forever, it can still be functional for the masses and large companies looking to utilise it.

Ofcourse the miners may have to be rewarded in a different way than they are today depending on how price develops, but that's not impossible to conceive of (eg they just get a 'salary' from companies profiting from using the block chain tech, not from blocks themselves - in a sense 'renting' access to it from miners ). Sounds weird but not impossible, right?

Maybe I'm missing something!  but if the price falls back to and settled in the single  digit range it would cause a fuss but companies and people who wanted to use the tech would simply find a way to adapt it to what they need (same if price stayed volatile, just need to find a way to segragate speculators and traders impact from day2day users). Thus btc will survive and imo would actually be more likely to become a mainstream tech (in the backend sense: that millions use it via online transactions or something,  but don't really know they are using it per se, but if price of each btc were not a concern of the day2day they'd be more likely to use it).

I guess depends if you care or not about btc becoming mainstream in the way btc is used / exists today.
Just my understanding of what is possible, correct me if I'm wrong. ;p

Newsflash, "The internet" wasn't google and facebook when it began to catch on. You had to figure out modems, diallers, TCP/IP stacks, unless you used it in a dumbed down sanitised version like AOL. Google and Facebook are 10+ years down the road, OF FUCKING COURSE bitcoin isn't that polished yet.

I seem to have hit a nerve.
Anyway, I wasn't wondering why as of 2014/2015 Bitcoin isn't as popular as Facebook. The points I made were about the challenges of Bitcoin EVER hitting mainstream acceptance (in the same way services like FB have been accepted as part of our lifes today). One of which was the fact that Bitcoin lacks something all these massively popular services seem to have in common which is centralization. People know who to call when something goes wrong with a paypal transaction. Since decentralization is such an important part of Bitcoin I'm wondering how this conflict of interest can be solved. The conflict being that we want Bitcoin to be both an disruptive force against the entire financial system while also hitting it hard mainstream a la Facebook.

IMO that centralisation is an artifact of success due to snowballing "network effect", it's the only way it could be done... in the past. There were 10+ search engines, there were 10+ budding "social network" type sites, the bigger ones got bigger, because the bigger they were the more attractive they were to use.

With blockchain technology that co-ordinates independant nodes into a whole, kind of like an unbreakable franchise agreement, one can have a decentralised, system that behaves more like a centralised one, in that the interoperability is enforced in the code.

Eternal September (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

Yes, the most important thing is blockchain idea, whatever bitcoin survive or die, the  blockchain technology will be  survived.

http://www.abacus.ca/images/hand-held-digital-abacus.jpg
This is the blockchain without bitcoins.

when bill gates done the letterman interview, the internet was very centralised. AOL owned the majority stake.. it was not until the internet became less centralised with other companies popping up as ISP's did the internet truly expand beyond belief.

when people realise that they can hold wealth and operate without a bank account (bitcoins true purpose) then those smart people will adopt bitcoin. it wont be until a few years before general public are ready for bitcoin.. we are still in the innovation stage after all.. so relax.


anyone looking at the bitcoin price more then once a day/week are not the anti-bank population. the ones that even care about a $10k bitcoin are the ones that are only in bitcoin for a get fiat rich scheme.. and to be honest. ill be glad to see them go.

media not positive about bitcoin? are you sure???
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2013/12/10/ron-paul-bitcoin-currency-dollar-fed.cnnmoney/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqN6n9_xVgw
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11138581/Bitcoin-will-become-the-new-gold.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11138905/Bill-Gates-Bitcoin-is-exciting-because-it-is-cheap.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28816975

plus hundreds more..


when talking about computers no one gos into details to explain what gigaherts, ram, HDD, quad-core truly means
when talking about money no one talks about the cotton paper or the ISO numbers of the inks or the fabrication methods



trendon shavers - in court
mark kerpeles - in court
ross ulbricht - in court
charlie shrem, btcking - in court
the other heists like the bitcoinica, intersango.. well we all know its amir taaki.
now tell me how many bankers have been pt in court if bank note fraud is such easier to audit???


no one is respobsible for gold thefts either.. for far too long people have been reliant on banks.. but how often have banks forclosed on people, how often have banks closed accounts. how often have credit cards been declined..


its already happening now, that normal DUMB users are using webwallets for small convenient daily spend amounts.. even some of the big smart players are too. but then keeping the long hoard stuff backed up offline. that is going to be the nature of bitcoin . just like the nature of all currencies..

to have a little bit of junk change in your pocket to spend today, but secure your main savings separately. so relax its happening


bitcoin is not smart or too disruptive.. its just code. it has no voice.. what you have to realise is that we are still in the innovator stage where a high percentage of users are geeks trying to show off. thus the limited PR that gets sent out, is usually spun out with all the scientific lingo..
when normal people start adopting bitcoin and the early main adopter phase begins, you will see less talk about the technical aspects and more about the simple 'features and benefits' just like no one talks about how many bolts and welding spots it took to put a car together, they just tell customers about the leather seats and top speed.

time will tell ...... also, what does it mean by mainstream?  Mom and pop don't trade stocks - but you can't argue about stock market & wall street's power
even if bitcoin never goes mainstream, it doesn't mean we can't make some $ out of it.

This is the image you were looking for to accompany that post:

https://i.imgur.com/83RH5gT.png
https://twitter.com/ahaseeba/status/539247755341070337/photo/1

Windows = Very centralized, made by one of the "big names", you can't even look at the source code without signing a non-disclosure agreement (and even then, unless I'm mistaken, you can only see certain parts of it). There are more viruses for Windows than all other computer operating systems in the world combined.
Linux = Somewhat centralized in the sense that Linus does have the final say on what goes into the "official" kernel, but in practice it's much more decentralized than this. Linus is one man and must delegate a lot of that responsibility to other members of the developer community, additionally the source code is available for all to see and the maintainers of various Linux distributions can apply their own patches to the versions of the kernel that they release. When's the last time you heard of a Linux virus? What are the odds that that virus still works on a modern Linux kernel? That's right, while there have been a small number of Linux viruses, I don't know of a single one that will work on a modern Linux kernel. Android root exploits are a different story, but a lot of those come from modifications made to the kernel by Google and various phone manufacturers and wireless carriers. In other words, those vulnerabilities come not from the somewhat decentralized process of Linux development but from the centralized "big names" you praise so much in your post.

If you want to compare the two and decide which one is "safe" for consumers (not which one is convenient, which one is more popular, or which one is better for gaming) there can be no doubt in any reasonable person's mind that the less centralized approach wins.


People generally don't like to waste energy by re-learning how to do something (like watching movies). If something works, it works. [snip irrelevant part]. Well the difference with BitTorrent is that since it's not centralized and therefore can't be controlled by the government (neither directly or through companies), leading it to the masses will be much more difficult. This must be why everybody in the world buys DVDs, goes to the theater or buys their movies from a "legitimate" centralized download service and nobody has ever heard of BitTorrent... oh wait...


That much is true.. so why, then, have there already been certain mainstream media outlets who have had good things to say about Bitcoin?


"Mainstream media" and "truth" rarely belong in the same sentence, and more and more people these days are beginning to realize that.


If you can't blame the centralized service controlled by a big company for some vulnerability that allowed something bad or illegal to happen, surely you can't blame a decentralized protocol that isn't controlled by any single entity and has no concept of "right and wrong" other than mathematical proofs that the protocol is being followed.


Then it is up to us to educate the mainstream media about what Bitcoin is and how it works. Then, if they still choose to misrepresent the facts with sensationalist headlines like "Bitcoin Hacked!" it's up to us to educate the general public, whose trust in the mainstream media is already failing.


Ask Charlie Shrem or Ross Ulbricht about how they misused BTC with zero consequence.


There is no logic there, only a fallacy. If someone hacks your Facebook account, you don't say "The internet was hacked" simply because you use the TCP/IP protocol to connect with Facebook. Your argument, to me, mostly reads like "People are ignorant, so Bitcoin will never catch on" and this is the same argument people used ten years ago about the internet. This argument completely ignores the fact that as sentient living things, human beings have the ability to learn about things they don't currently understand and find uses for those things that they might not have though of before they learned about them.

Edit: At first glance, the BitTorrent argument might not make sense because it compares purchasing with "pirating" or "stealing". However, when you consider the old saying "time is money" it costs me much less to go to Walmart and buy a movie out of the $5 DVD bin and even to rip that DVD to my laptop if I want to than it does (in terms of time spent) to find a good torrent of that same movie and wait for it to finish downloading. Still, people spend much more than $5 worth of their time using BitTorrent to download movies when there are much simpler and more centralized ways to get them.

I have my doubts too regaring how big it can become in steady state
That said, the apps now possible are amazing and I am intrigued by what decentralised trust makes possible

https://theumlaut.com/2014/01/08/bitcoin-internet-of-money/

Still one of the best articles out there in my book...

Crypto may go mainstream one day. BTC? Less likely so.

Unless there is a breakthrough in transaction technology, Bitcoin is the clear winner. The chances of another Black Swan event in the next decade? Near zero.

Actually bitcoin going mainstream is already happening.
Not everyone started using computers overnight.

This process will take years. Deal with it.

I agree but some of your logic is flawed, e.g. do you think companies like Dell, HP, Samsung were big BEFORE they released their technology? saying computers owe there success because big companies got behind them is quite the oxymoron.

If you were a Windows user and do not know what TUCOWS was, then you were not there when the internet started to take off.

On the mainstream media issue.  There main concern is selling adverts.  They do that by having sensationalist stories.  So right now they talk about how dangerous bitcoin is, how it is used from drugs and possibly terrorist, but in a couple of years if Bitcoin starts to actually do something serious, then they will sell stories about how bitcoin will take over the world, its sensational rise, the mystery of its founder and so on. 

They just want to sell commercials and they do that via making mountains out of mole hills.  But when it come to Bitcoin and our next good run, they will be saying, "back from the dead" and "will bitcoin be king".

Remember "web rings" before all the search engine indexing happened? I used to click through web rings until I realized I had clicked through the same sites a dozen times.

You are complicating things too much. With time, bitcoin will be easier to use, then, it only takes celebrities talking about it in twitter and "making it a thing". If all these people that move tons of traffic, start making twitter posts about it and making it sound cool, then people will jump on in and then snowball effect will ensue. It will only take a day where it just becomes cool to use bitcoin, then we'll see starbucks filled with people paying with bitcoin and whatnot.


This also, even if btc fails (which will not) the blockchain yet will go on. And if anything BTC would have a "historical collectible" value, as the first serious attempt at a crypto currency ever.

If the Winkle twins are able to get Wall Street involved, we could see a Chinese type boon all over again.

Mainstream adoption is happening but it is very slow, it will take some more years.

seems people like you only care about the price boom and not the usage boom...

i think anyone only thinking about the price has never left their basement to try talking their local grocer into accepting bitcoin..
and as such, those lazy a-holes that want other people to do the hard work while the a-holes make fiat profits.. dont deserve any such profits.

going mainstream is not about price rise, its about usage. so instead of arguing that bitcoin will or wont go mainstream or that the price will or wont rocket.. and simply go talk to your landlords, grocery stores and gas stations and get them to accept bitcoin.

after all if everyone does their part to ensure bitcoin usage in their own area, the end result is that all area's are covered.

Why bitcoin will never go mainstream is pure and simple and this forum is a perfect example of why, even in here we have tons of got lucky and got rich quick vets who think their shit dont stink and have no idea what an investment is nor how to secure that investment, no one is concentrating on what bitcoin really needs, an no one is taking the time to secure their investments. Bitcoin will not go mainstream, pure and simply becasue no one who has the coins to make it happen wants to do the work involved to make it happen. they are sitting back with their hands out and waiting for you to do the work for them so they can reap the rewards of your hard work. What needs done will never get done until a lucky young investor who really knows what investing is about steps in here and takes this industry to level the vets here now would be amazed at.

This is actually a very good point. The only real way to increase the value of bitcoin is to spread awareness and adoption. Tell everyone you meet about it and ask and pester merchants to accept it and make sure you tell everyone of the benefits of accepting and dealing with it.

Guess nobody watched the Bitcoin Bowl? lol. If ESPN ain't mainstream, then I guess we'll never make it at this rate.  ;)

From the history we learn that any new, revolutionary method or way, any discovery which could improve people's life, always stated slow and very few people trusted in the begging, like TV, Train etc.
Read this stories, it's really interesting :)
But, on the end, after a lot difficulties and obstacles, people accepted and it became mainstream.
So, don't judge BTC based on the current status, but look in the future and believe!
I'm sure BTC will very soon become mainstream because people will see many benefits of using it!

virtual currency will go mainstream. Bitcoin has the best chance currently.

Decentralization is how natural markets work.

For example the gold/silver market started as decentralized as gold and silver were dispersed in all parts of the world. Now we have some centralized stashes but it is still decentralized to a certain extent and that has been over the course of thousands of years.

THIS

Maybe not bitcoin but some altcoin for sure, maybe even if not altcoin then the blockchain technology, give it few years!

The reason why people are not wanting to engage local merchants to get them to accept bitcoin is because it will have a very small marginal benefit to them. When you put the effort into getting an additional merchant to accept bitcoin it will cause a very small amount of additional adoption, especially when compared to the percentage of bitcoin that most people that hold bitcoin have.

Robocoin Bitcoin ATM: 5% fee, 7% spread.

When it comes to bitcoin and the blockchain I would say we are still in the early dos days of the technology. There is a ton of room for it to grow before it goes mainstream but with the rate that technology advances I believe it can happen pretty fast. By the year 2020 I believe we will see a bitcoin logo right next to every visa and Mastercard logo at every gas station, grocery store and retail store.

I think Bitcoin is more comparable to TCP/IP or a protocol level technology, than a manufacturer/software company like Apple or Microsoft.

Facebook/Google are social networking and search/ad revenue companies, so not really a good comparison.

The actual Bitcoin currency may evolve over time, but the underlying blockchain technology is what all the major financial and technology players are targetting and looking at it with high interest and dollar sign eyes.

Consider the Bitcoin bowl. Merchants (which are centralized) such as Bitpay will construct services around Bitcoin.  This will inevitably advertise Bitcoin's technology in the same fashion as Dell promotes "lalala core processsor" this new" LED display".

Bitcoin will get marketing from the businesses that adopt it. Right now, I am seeing a whole bunch of merchant acceptance without involvement, meaning lots of merchants are throwing up "bitcoin accepted" signs, but they are not putting in the leg work to educate customers, and why should they if it's going to cost alot with no return.  In order to reap rewards for both sides of the picture, merchants need to use bitcoin as a strategy, not a promotion.  Educate customers, find a place in their evoked set or word of mouth. 

I am strong on the fact that if you can excite your customers about bitcoin, your brand will be mentioned when they tell their friends... right now it's just a theory but there has to be some sort of grounding, and will be doing research in january to test.  Likewise, a person who has had a smooth bitcoin transaction with you in the past, I believe, will come back for more business when faced with no alternatives using bitcoin, so if your brand is the only one in the industry utilizing these payments you should see a few additional sales.

With that said it all lies in the marketing and how you creatively communicate bitcoin to the customer. Everyone knows merchants save 2.9% here and there, now why is a consumer going to stop using cash ad convert to bitcoin...  This queston to me is an industry specific answer.... ONline poker is what originally got me here, and it's a huge benefit to use bitcoin.  This is going to be different from a grocery store, to a movie rental place, to a restraunt.

So right now i really think it lies within merchants to not only accept bitcoin, but promote it, sell with it, educate their customers and monitor the results.  PErhaps loyalty will rise?  Maybe bitcoin can be used as a way to discount upsales?

There's a place, we're in the grey area. I think big things are coming this year.

Happy holidays.

It could go mainstream, I am teaching my mom on how to use Bitcoin.  She is just collecting faucets and she enjoys doing it(she doesn't have a lot, anyone want to donate to her?:))   She is not an everyday computer user, and does have some trouble understanding what everything is on there, I will also say there is no way she would ever know how to secure her wallet besides using an online one with a password(much like an email or bank account)

gold has an advantage of hundreds/thousands of years to establish itself. bitcoin just came around the corner and some people say it will follow the same road..... how is that even possible?

 

It doesn't have to go mainstream in the First world.  There are plenty of poorer countries that don't have access to bank accounts and can't safely store money in their homes, who need Bitcoin. 

This still isn't an issue.  "The internet" is decentralized.  And there are centralized products and services built on top of it.  Just like Bitcoin is decentralized, and there will be centralized products and services built on top of it.  Even though everyone here screams about a decentralized revolution - human beings as a whole will flock to safe, centralized, trustworthy entities.  But just like the internet, you will be able to still use Bitcoin in an anonymous, decentralized fashion as a power user, if you choose to.  Just like people today use TOR.  So your concern isn't really a concern.  If you give it the time he is suggesting, all those things you wish existed (centralized companies) will exist.  And by the way - it was a hell of a lot more than 10 years before Facebook.  Even Google came more than 30 years after the inception of the internet.  Thirty Years before Google existed.   Again:   Thirty years.

-B-

Keep supporting Bitcoin, it will prevail.