That was part of the observation in my original post. Unfortunately, that it the same as saying that "cash" is ill-suited for the casual user. In order for a typical person to use bitcoin, it will have to be stored in an "account" on some server and not under the direct control of the person.
No the typical casual user will use a lite node. Also I would point out that in e-wallets like blockchain.info your private keys ARE under your direct control. Blockchain.info only handles the higher level processing (validating tx, calculating balances, submitting tx to the network, parsing blocks for incoming tx, etc).
I noticed that downloading the last 10% of the block chain (the last 30 or so days) took about 75% of the time. Doesn't this indicate an exponential growth of the size of the block chain, or at least the amount of work needed to process it? And if it continues growing like this, won't the wallet eventually be unable to keep up? Please inform me.
If the human race keeps doubling every 15 years then in a thousand or so years every square inch of our planet will be covered with humans. Assuming exponential growth will continue is flawed.
The great global Bitcoin influenza, Bitcoin Nuclear War and BItcoin famine, will keep the blockchain in check. No worries.
