I get the impression that none of the previous posters has actually read the piece, preferring instead to wax nostalgic about their own university days and then extrapolate from there.
Hey, we're all pattern-seeking creatures - don't be grumpy.
I have degrees from SFU so of course the item caught my eye and I did read it. It's a very brief (5 paragraph) opinion piece - unresearched and uninformed as far as I can tell, from a frequent blog-post-style contributor to newsbtc.
Five paragraphs - this is one of them:
"In its golden days a few years back, bitcoin prices have (sic) surged past the $1,200 level before gradually descending in 2014 until its current levels at $240 this year. Relevant industry updates continue to push prices around, along with overall market sentiment." (What just happened?)
A few more excerpts:
"Students at the Canadian university can be able to pay for their books with bitcoin at any of the book stores located on the university campuses and bitcoin ATMs were installed later on." (Parse that grammar, if you dare - I think the underlying facts are correct).
"However, some students found the cryptocurrency to (sic) volatile when it comes to everyday use." (No examples or quotations offered, just the author's assertion).
"While this could be an opportunity for the SFU Bitcoin Club to educate its peers, not all students might be receptive of this information and might choose to dismiss the idea entirely." (Um, and so what? What follows from that? Why would it matter, if true? Is "not all" a significant number? Is "might choose" a newsworthy find?)
"Students who don't understand how bitcoin works or those who find the price too volatile might be alienated by this development". (Um, why/how exactly? Why wouldn't they just ignore it? Would they be alienated if the bookstores started accepting Mastercard when they only had Visa?)
"However, constantly updating the prices can be confusing for the students and it could open up the possibility of using price changes in one’s favor. It could also cause suspicion between students if one student gets a good discount for making a purchase at the right time." The sole commenter at newsbtc (so far) demolishes that presumably straw man argument by pointing out: "To put a pricetag on a book in BTC would be ridiculous. You do realize that most businesses that accept BTC display their prices in dollars, and when the transaction is at the pay stage if the customer selects BTC it shows what the BTC amount would be based on the current exchange rate...."
My closing thoughts, after reading some earlier posts: One of the SFU campuses (downtown) caters mainly to the MBA wannabe crowd who work in the nearby office buildings - definitely not the young pub-dwelling KD and Raman (sic) type of student.
The main campus (on Burnaby mountain) has a large Asian-student population, some of whom fit the penniless student stereotype and some of whom drive Boxsters to school. On balance, they are probably
BTC-savvy, imho. Regardless, it will be interesting to see how the SFU bookstore-
BTC gambit works out over time, btcnewsfluff notwithstanding.
