Show me a country where there is no tax; and you can keep laughing

I don't mean we don't need miners. I mean for the process to be automated. Think about big data-centers running on renewable energy. A Netherland windmill with a Bitcoin logo on it..
As I'm literally looking at my colleagues counting his(her) coin he(she) is mining at home; I disagree with the efficiency of home-based miners. Miners will grow weary soon. Or at least up until 2040. By that time who knows what the picture is like.
For now let's keep them happy. I like my colleague when he(she) is happy.

I do know about Asia. Asian are not risk-aversion. They prefer holding golden bars, written contracts, face-to-face meeting. Nothing wrong with it, it's just culture, it takes centuries to change.
I don't know about Europe.
I do know about American. We are risk takers. Even if we fail, we will make some comedy movies of it, have some good laugh, and move on to other ventures. Quoted Richard Branson: "business ventures are like buses, there are ALWAYS new ones coming".
Thanks TaunSew for pointing out GHASH. Quite interesting. I'll keep an eye on this along the way.
Again, it's a test of trust in a trust-less system.
If people trust the protocol, they will withdraw themselves from GHASH, preventing it to reach 51%.
If people don't care or they don't know, they will flock to GHASH, helping it to reach 51%, 60%, 99% and BAM, GHASH turns the table -> virtual currency loses -> everyone withdraws -> no more BITCOIN! We convert BITCOIN to fiat, pick ourselves up and jump on other buses. Not so bad.

Very well summed.
I agree this might intimidate most miners (esp. in US).
But overall it won't be a big deal.
And eventually people will adopt IRS ruling. That's a good thing.
Think about it. Tax money goes back to your grandfather, your kids, your neighbors, the road that you drive on every morning.

BTC is being taxed similarly to fiat currency.
BTC has the superiority that fiat currency doesn't.
IMHO, with or without being taxed, BTC is still superior to fiat.

Remember the dot com bubble? I was 18 years old and I thought the Internet was something too vague to bet on.
And Google was founded in a garage; to allow people to search! How can you set up a company that helps people search, and dream to become rich?  That (was) ridiculous. And Google became big.

Hold on to your faith.
Regarding userbase, there are mainstream companies jumping on board to help this. Look at www.circle.com They make Bitcoin more user-friendly, at least for US people. And virtual currency has been helping people in Africa since 2007 already. It's not Bitcoin's problem that we don't accept it. It's us. We're usually okay with sub-standards. But it is changing. We are trusting AirBNB, Uber. We might as well trust Bitcoin.

@pitham1 What country do you live in? Did you make the transfer to another user in the same banking system, e.g. from POSB Singapore to another POSB Singapore? Otherwise I highly doubt that it's free.

Meanwhile in US:
[wiki]In the United States, domestic wire transfers are governed by Federal Regulation J[5] and by Article 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code.[6] US wire transfers are costly, for example, as of November 2011 the Bank Of America charged $25 to send a wire and $12 to receive one within the U.S. For international transfer, it charged $35–$45 outgoing, $16 incoming[/wiki]

I don't think miners will be necessary after we've mined enough coins (2040 something..). There needs to be dedicated servers for TX verification. How do we fund those servers, that's the next question. Again. the core concept of Bitcoin/Altcoin is about de-centralization, but the network needs to be funded somehow.

More at: http://bitcoinfees.com/ "The fee, when it is required, is usually worth less than 40 US cents.". "If you can wait for 10 hours, there will be no transaction fee".

IMHO 10 mBTC for TX fee is still considered super cheap as compared to other service providers.