Bitcoin is just to complicated for the average person to use..

[merve10495]

Bitcoin really is just too complicated to aquire. You need to go through a god damn identity verification if you want to buy the coins with your credit card. Its just too much work for the average person, and this fact means that less people will be using bitcoin. And if less people are using bitcoin, then there won't be any point buying them. Its an infinite loop of despair.

You can use localbitcoin or something similar:
For example in Italy we have different sites that sells bitcoin by recharging a prepaid card or you can use Purse or Brawker (obliviously the fee is higher, but it's the price for "anonymity") .

But even with local bitcoin they still need to do a bank transfer to an unknown person and a random bank account. If you walked up to average joe and told him to send money overseas to some random account and you'll get digital numbers that 'works like money' they won't do it. They'll keep using fiat.
Anywhere else requires verification and all sorts of random goobly gop.

[OrientA]

The user experience will improve over the time. I saw people over 60 years of age using iphone.

[futureofbitcoin]

You guys need to stop being bitcoin cultists and look at this objectively. Using bitcoin gives 0 benefit over fiat to the vast majority of people. Instead, they'd have to pay fees to exchange it, and to transfer the bitcoins to their own wallet, then again when they're using it. If I withdraw cash through interac, I don't pay anything. I don't pay anything extra when I'm paying the merchant either. With credit card, I can pay on credit. It's also extremely easy to use.

Why would I spend the effort to obtain bitcoins? The answer is that there is no reason, unless you're a libertarian bitcoin cultist. Seriously. Stop saying "You can obtain bitcoins by doing this, this, this, this, this, this and this". I can obtain fiat without doing all those steps. I get no benefit from doing those steps. Why should I do it?

Again, whether something is complicated or not depends on what that thing is/does. spending 1000 hours working to become an olympic champion is easy. Spending 1000 hours working to buy an Aero bar is extremely stupid.

[Light]

1980: No one will ever have a personal computer it is to complicated to use and serves no purpose.

1990: No one will ever use the internet it's to complicated to use and serves no purpose have you heard of a video recorder.

The problem with comparing this to Bitcoin is that those 'inventions' had no precedent - they were the first and so when they actually became useful they were actively used. Comparatively, Bitcoin has to compete with all major currencies on top of other forms of wealth storage (ie. gold) - without offering enough to move masses of people over.

[merve10495]

The user experience will improve over the time. I saw people over 60 years of age using iphone.

This discussion isn't about it being technically too hard to use.
It's too hard to acquire an iphone. It isn't too hard for a 60 year old to acquire an iphone.
How easy is it to get fiat and buy an iphone with fiat.
How easy is it to get bitcoin and buy an iphone with bitcoin

[DarkHyudrA]

You guys need to stop being bitcoin cultists and look at this objectively. Using bitcoin gives 0 benefit over fiat to the vast majority of people. Instead, they'd have to pay fees to exchange it, and to transfer the bitcoins to their own wallet, then again when they're using it. If I withdraw cash through interac, I don't pay anything. I don't pay anything extra when I'm paying the merchant either. With credit card, I can pay on credit. It's also extremely easy to use.

Why would I spend the effort to obtain bitcoins? The answer is that there is no reason, unless you're a libertarian bitcoin cultist. Seriously. Stop saying "You can obtain bitcoins by doing this, this, this, this, this, this and this". I can obtain fiat without doing all those steps. I get no benefit from doing those steps. Why should I do it?

Again, whether something is complicated or not depends on what that thing is/does. spending 1000 hours working to become an olympic champion is easy. Spending 1000 hours working to buy an Aero bar is extremely stupid.

Bitcoin isn't meant to be a "get money for free" option. Everybody that think that can be rich without any invest, that guy is really stupid.
My country doesn't allow me to receive neither have USD or any other country currency. What Bitcoin helped me? It helps me to buy products and services without paying an annoying ~7% tax FOR EVERY TRANSACTION. PayPal takes almost 9% from common users, and because of the local law, even with PayPal I'm not allowed to receive payments in USD neither pay anything in USD without an international CC.
So yeah, using CC is really easy, but they are a lot of pain compared to 0.0001BTC per transaction.

[shogdite]

definitely not true, it's very easy for anyone to use it, it is only difficult to understand the technical aspects of it

and obtaining bitcoin is easy too, the problem is more related to taxes than anything else

Think that's the point of the thread, the average user wont need (nor would be interested) to understand the technical aspects of bitcoin. The actual sending/receiving btc part is just a few mouse clicks and a password, the hardest part from what I see is making sure the wallets are in a secure environment and completely foolproof.

[ensurance982]

The user experience will improve over the time. I saw people over 60 years of age using iphone.

The initial post was obviously not meant to be taken seriously. He/she wanted to point out that all these technologies were considered to be difficult at one time but became more accepted as time passed. I think there are already great and easy wallets readily available

[johnyj]

There is a big difference between internet and bitcoin:

When using internet, people don't risk too much, they gain a lot of convenience typically. But when using bitcoin, they risk losing large amount of money while their gain is quite uncertain. So far only very experienced investors/speculators have adopted since they have good risk management skill, those who blindly follow will get hurt by volatility and theft

[ensurance982]

There is a big difference between internet and bitcoin:

When using internet, people don't risk too much, they gain a lot of convenience typically. But when using bitcoin, they risk losing large amount of money while their gain is quite uncertain. So far only very experienced investors/speculators have adopted since they have good risk management skill, those who blindly follow will get hurt by volatility and theft

Yes, I agree that's quite a big hurdle to jump if you think about "going Bitcoin". On the other hand, there are few things as tempting as getting rich. And that's one of the things that is driving Bitcoin's adoption since day 1!

[Digitalpawn]

So true. There are many other examples where people ignored inventions because they could find no use for it. I remember when I bought my first computer everybody said 64MB of RAM was an overkill.
Same thing when CDs started coming out people were saying they are too big and not as handy as the tapes, 10 years later nobody was using tapes anymore.

10 years later no one uses CDs anymore.

[ChuckBuck]

1980: No one will ever have a personal computer it is to complicated to use and serves no purpose.

1990: No one will ever use the internet it's to complicated to use and serves no purpose have you heard of a video recorder.

1990s:  Why would I use a mobile phone, I have a landline phone at home!

2000: Social Media, what the fuck is that?!!

2010s:  Bitcoin?  Virtual Currency, Cryptocurrency?!!  Yea right!  I'll stick to my dollars and Paypal.  

[Bitware]

Pre Stone Age: No one would want stone tools and weapons. They're to complex. Wood tools and weapons are fine.

Stone Age: No one would want copper tools and weapons. They're to complex. Stone tools and weapons are fine.

Copper Age: No one would want bronze tools and weapons. They're to complex. Copper tools and weapons are fine.

Bronze Age: No one would want iron tools and weapons. They're to complex. Bronze tools and weapons are fine.

3rd Century AD: No one would want a sawmill. They're to complex. Hand saws and axes are fine.

13th Century AD: No one would want a gun. They're to complex. Swords, knives, maces, clubs and polearms are fine.

1684: No one would want a semaphore line (optical telegraphy). They're to complex. Letters are fine.

1698: No one would want a steam-powered machine. They are to complex. Beasts of burden are fine.

1753: No one would want a telegraph machine. They're to complex. Semaphore lines and letters are fine.

1876: No one would want a telephone. They're to complex. Telegraph machines and letters are fine.

1886: No one would want a gas-powered machine. They're to complex. Steam-powered machines are fine.

[Amph]

I think we should found a way to make bitcoin easy, so most average can use bitcoin without knowing detail about bitcoin
If that happen, bitcoin users will be greatly increased in future

what is hard about bitcoin exactly? running a client? it's like running every other program..spend them? it's like going in your bank account and do a bank transfer(which far slower, you need to fill all the free fields ecc..)

there is nothing difficult about bitcoin really, they are afraid of losing money, because when you are in control of something, you are more free to do what you want with it but the responsibility will also rise

[spazzdla]

It's true at this moment.
If you don't understand what is bitcoin, which is complicate for average people, then you will lost your coin very easy.There are a lot of work should be done to make it easy  and secure to use.

This is what I am getting at.

Until the average dim wit moron can use Bitcoin and not have them stolen we are going no where.

This is the largest issue facing BTC.

[spazzdla]

On buying and selling Bitcoin in a western country.

Kijiji.. that is all.

[MikeCorleone]

There are so many companies working to make Bitcoin easier to use. It's only a matter of time before everyone can use it ::

[Q7]

I was taken aback by that statement but later realized it's the opposite. Yeah I'm surprised there are people who would rather not bothered at all about bitcoin and their reasons are that it is too hard to learn up. The only difficult part that I see more  challenging is the security and apart from that understanding and using bitcoin is pretty straightforward.

[GenTarkin]

You guys need to stop being bitcoin cultists and look at this objectively. Using bitcoin gives 0 benefit over fiat to the vast majority of people. Instead, they'd have to pay fees to exchange it, and to transfer the bitcoins to their own wallet, then again when they're using it. If I withdraw cash through interac, I don't pay anything. I don't pay anything extra when I'm paying the merchant either. With credit card, I can pay on credit. It's also extremely easy to use.

Why would I spend the effort to obtain bitcoins? The answer is that there is no reason, unless you're a libertarian bitcoin cultist. Seriously. Stop saying "You can obtain bitcoins by doing this, this, this, this, this, this and this". I can obtain fiat without doing all those steps. I get no benefit from doing those steps. Why should I do it?

Again, whether something is complicated or not depends on what that thing is/does. spending 1000 hours working to become an olympic champion is easy. Spending 1000 hours working to buy an Aero bar is extremely stupid.

What u dont realize is that using fiat is not 'free'. Sure it seems free on the consumer side, but every person that uses fiat is being stolen from in 2 ways. 1. Devaluation of the fiat currency over time. 2. Higher prices due to merchant / merchant processing fees.
Theres fees/'a price to pay' with either system... ALWAYS, the nice thing about bitcoin is its completely transparent.

[Frost]

I always have to laugh when people compare Bitcoin with the internet.