Real life bitcoin scenario for non-bitcoiners

[bitcoinbear]

I'm kicking off: It's June 2013, Adam enters a store, picks up some snacks and takes it to the counter. What happens next?

Bitcoin can be useful even if a store point-of-sale system is never implemented.

But to go with your scenario, I see two options:

1: The clerk scans his items, he goes to the payment device (the thing people swipe credit cards with now). The screen gives options for the buttons indicating types of transactions, one of them says "Bitcoin". Adam presses the button by bitcoins. The screen brings up a QR code bitcoin amount, store name, and address (all in a bitcoin standardized format). Adam pulls out his smartphone, opens the bitcoin app, zaps the code, presses the confirm button on his phone. After a second the screen says "transaction received" or something like that, Adam takes his stuff and walks out. (The store name is not nescesary for the bitcoin transaction, but it makes record keeping nicer so when you look back at your wallet you know what that transaction was from.)

2: The clerk scans his items, Adam swipes a card just like he would a credit card. This is linked to an account with bitcoins, but the store clerk doesn't need to know about all that, since everything happens in the backend to do the conversion and the store is electronically sent dollars, just like a credit card.

Why I say bitcoin can be useful without this setup is that bitcoins can function as a savings tool, like gold does today. People who want to save money convert it to bitcoin on an exchange or with somebody local in person, and when they are done saving they convert it back on the exchange. Bitcoin has the advantage over gold in that it is harder to fake and it is easier to trade with people farther away.

Bitcoin is also very nice for internet purchases. And for doing long-distance work (like programming or digital artwork) where there is no reason for the employer and employee to be restricted to dealing only with people in their own country.

[Trader Steve]

Those that don't do currency will have it done to them.

Fuck the retard masses, they can get with the program or starve.

You make an excellent point. There's no reason to convince anyone about the merits at bitcoin. IMO it will continue to rise in use and value due to it's nature. Those who disregard it do so at their own loss. When I buy things I offer to pay in bitcoin whenever possible and those who have ears will want to know more.

I bought several products this past week this way. I spend bitcoin only because I earn a good portion of my income in bitcoin and I have to liquidate some to cover day-to-day expenses. With that said, I save as much as possible and only spend what I have to.

Follow-up comment:

If you want to increase acceptance, make it a point to always offer to pay for products and services with bitcoin and then provide your favorite link to get more bitcoin information. They will most likely decline but you will accomplish 3 things:

1. You will convey to them that there is a market demand to pay in bitcoin from their customer base.
2. You will introduce them to bitcoin and give them links where they can learn more.
3. You will pave the way for them to say "yes" to the next customer who offers to pay with bitcoin.

When I first heard about bitcoin I dismissed it outright and ignored it for 6 months before I decided to take a second look. Now it is my preferred method of being paid. I never accept credit cards or PayPal. I accept only physical cash (gold, silver, FRN's) and digital cash (bitcoin). When I receive FRN's I quickly convert them to one of my 3 favorite commodities: Gold, Silver or Bitcoin

People will come around eventually - it's good for business!

[TheBible]

A guy goes to mtgox and is allowed to cash out as many btc as he wants because free markets don't put hard limits on that kind of thing.

[TheBible]

Wait, I have another one.

A guy tries to buy a Snickers bar and waits 30 minutes for the transaction to verify.  It doesn't because the transaction fees have gone up, so he has to raise his bid and wait another 30 minutes and just hope.  Also, the btc price of the snickers bar is inflated by 150%.

Alternately, he uses fiat cash because who sells candy bars for bitcoins?  He goes home and buys drugs and child porn off of silk road, because besides scamming, that's about all you can do with bitcoins.  He never receives either.  He then smugly posts about how only retards don't use bitcoin before losing everything to LiterallyAPonziSceme run by venerated forums member PonziMan.  He is legitimately surprised.

[markm]

 It's June 2013, Adam enters a store, picks up some snacks and takes it to the counter.

Oh hi Adam," the cashier greets him. "Snacking away some of the gains your tab has made this week?"

"Oh gosh no!" Adam replies. "My bitcoin tab is only for emergencies. I still get paid in fiat at work so of course I am dumping fiat before touching my tab. How much is it up, by the way?"

Cashier consults screen. "Only another few bucks a coin this week. Ok, let me ring that in in fiat for you... You know, you really should keep your bitcoins on your own machine at home, not leave them all in your tab here..."

"Yeah yeah," Adam replies as he leaves. "But I trust you. And besides they aren't all here, I have tabs all over town. See ya."

-MarkM-

[TheBible]

Due to a random unpredictable glitch, Adam's hard drive is corrupted.  He loses everything, there is no way to ever get it back.  Bitcoiners tell him this is entirely his fault, then insist that the rest of the world convert to Bitcoin and wonder why everyone is ignoring them.

[franky1]

first step is finding a company that accepts loyalty points or foreign currency's instead of just native currency, then ur 99% able to sell them into BTC.

for the rest of the world that only likes native currency. here is wat id try. no mention of cryptography or government power instead its using the loyalty points scenario to make them understand

"so shop owner ur still accepting credit cards i see.. that must be bummer waiting to get reimbursed by the card issuer. i bet your employee's hate the 3-5 day delay in receiving their wages along with all them fees u have to pay for just to use that feeble system.

have u ever considered bitinstant payment system?

wats that

well so far there's 100,000 known regular users of it. and probably millions that arnt so regular. but lets just stick to wat you need to know first.
well they give u a prepayment card to get reimbursed within the hour, and u offer customers ur products for a loyalty point system thingy called bitcoins. the funds show up instantly as a payment is taken. the system is so robust it would take a supercomputer to fake them so don't worry about that from customers walking into ur shop with only a hand full of points in their wallets. but if u do care, the system also has a validation confirmation which takes under an hour. so by the time they have used their super computer to fake them, walked to ur store its already rejected them inside the customers wallet to not allow payment.

the important thing is that you get paid instantly by the customer and still have access to normal money to buy new stock, pay wages or whatever else all in one. and if you are part of a chain of stores you can send them funds instantly too across the world even, in seconds.

its simply electronic cash without the headaches of your credit card issuers. and without the headache of cashing up each evening and needing a security company to walk it over to the bank to deposit

quote from starship troopers: would you like to know more?

[sgravina]

It's June 2013, Adam enters a store, picks up some snacks and takes it to the counter.

The pretty young cashier knows Adam but he doesn't know her.  She smiles shyly as she rings up the snacks.  "Hi, Five dollars and Sixty Seven cents."  She is embarrassed that Adam doesn't know who she is.  Adam was in her brothers class back in High School.  She was a year behind.  It's not that she liked him or anything its just that most boys in town find her pretty and Adam never seems to notice.  She is convinced that there is something wrong with her.  Adam does remember her though, he remembers her really well.  He has had a crush on her ever since she first started going to his high school way back in 2007.  Adam is ridiculously shy, way more so than the cashier.  He pulls out a Visa card and says, "here".  She says thank you and swipes the card for him.  Adam never noticed the card swiping machine right in front of him despite shopping in this store every Friday afternoon for the last year.  Friday afternoon is her normal shift.

Two young souls lost in their own insecurity and hopelessly separated by their shyness and a Visa card.

Adam leaves the store, opens the soda and slowly drinks it as he drives away.   The chips and chocolate bar join the growing snack collection in the back seat of his car.  He will eventually use them to bribe his nephews when he sees them Sunday.

You see, Adam like most non-bitcoiners has never heard of bitcoin.  His brother uses them to buy drugs but he has never told Adam about them.  Adam loves his brother but can't take too much of him at a time.  Adam just wishes his brother was around more for his kids.

[franky1]

Due to a random unpredictable glitch, Adam's hard drive is corrupted.  He loses everything, there is no way to ever get it back.  Bitcoiners tell him this is entirely his fault, then insist that the rest of the world convert to Bitcoin and wonder why everyone is ignoring them.

I know, right. I've spent ten months trying to figure out how to make a copy of a file, yet I still haven't figured it out. Computers suck, I don't understand why anyone would use one. These people suggesting computers simplify your life are out of their mind. They will certainly go they way of the Dodo.

Did someone say I could protect the fifty dollar bills in my wallet so that even if they were destroyed completely I would still have my money? Give that man a Nobel.

aswell as keeping a data backup also write the private keys into a word document and print it out..

[elendir]

Awesome, I had a feeling this thread would be fun. Thanks for some really interesting suggestions. So it seems the main issue (apart from people's ignorance) is that the clerk is forced to make a choice to either risk double-spend or make Adam wait fo X minutes for at least 1 confirmation. That kindof sucks. I heard proposals that, in theory, this could be solved by using a bitcoin bank where Adam would deposit some of his bitcoins and this institution would be responsible for preventing double-spends of Adam's deposits. Clerk would recieve btc form bank, not directly from Adam. Or do you have other ideas?

[sippsnapp]

Awesome, I had a feeling this thread would be fun. Thanks for some really interesting suggestions. So it seems the main issue (apart from people's ignorance) is that the clerk is forced to make a choice to either risk double-spend or make Adam wait fo X minutes for at least 1 confirmation. That kindof sucks. I heard proposals that, in theory, this could be solved by using a bitcoin bank where Adam would deposit some of his bitcoins and this institution would be responsible for preventing double-spends of Adam's deposits. Clerk would recieve btc form bank, not directly from Adam. Or do you have other ideas?

Bank`s - isnt that what we trying to avoid?
Ok, well, lets call it excrow. But still, you would have an instititution that handles the bitcoin transactions, most probably for a fee as nobody works for free.
Then the same thing as with mtgox would probably popup, people would need to verify their identity.

[xDan]

Adam is eight years old! He goes into the sweet shop, and pays with his bitcoin card, on which he receives a monthly allowance of BTC from his parents. The shop owner appreciates the ease of use, not being required to deal with physical cash or find the correct change, yet without the charges of a bank card.

Later, Adam pays for a new monthly subscription to his favourite online game, by swiping his card into the built in reader on his games console (or even typing in the amount and receiving a unique payment code using a keypad and display built into the card itself).

Of course, all this would be impossible for Adam using a regular bank card, since he's probably not old enough to own one, or maybe his parents simply didn't want the hassle of setting up a bank account for him. It doesn't matter if he loses it either, since it only contains pocket change and his parents can just pick up a new one for almost nothing (or the price of a small preloaded amount) at the nearest shop.

[picobit]

Awesome, I had a feeling this thread would be fun. Thanks for some really interesting suggestions. So it seems the main issue (apart from people's ignorance) is that the clerk is forced to make a choice to either risk double-spend or make Adam wait fo X minutes for at least 1 confirmation. That kindof sucks. I heard proposals that, in theory, this could be solved by using a bitcoin bank where Adam would deposit some of his bitcoins and this institution would be responsible for preventing double-spends of Adam's deposits. Clerk would recieve btc form bank, not directly from Adam. Or do you have other ideas?

That is because using bitcoin for shopping candy is the wrong solution for the wrong problem.  There is literally no advantage to bitcoin here - but not much of a disadvantage either, since the risk of a double-spend is probably below the risk of accepting counterfeit cash or stolen visa cards.

The good use-case is Adam buying something on the net (preferably something legal!).  That is where bitcoin - even probably with escrow - will be competitive.

[Elwar]

Why is everyone ignoring the obvious BitInstant card?

BTC to local currency in the form of a debit card transparent to the merchant.

[niko]

Adam enters the store, buys some candy, and pays with cash. He walks out, runs into a buddy, they go for coffee in the local cofffee shop. At the register his buddy pulls out the phone, fires up Bitcoin Spinner 1.8, scans the qr code, and pays the bill (BTC0.05). Few hours later, Adam gets in the taxi, and - being happy with ride - pays bitcoins. Just tap his NFC phone against the driver's phone, and he is done. Both Adam and his friend received receipts for their purchases denominated in the local currency.

 He gets home, and refills his phone wallet from the dedicated savings wallet (based on Cranberry Pi). He also sends to his daughter - who studies abroad - coins for the next few months, which she will mostly exchange into local currency, and small part of it she will spend directly online. Where she is, Bitcoin hasn't really caught up yet.

[etotheipi]

I wanted to add my number one reason for preferring BTC:  identity theft.

When you use a CC, you are giving the merchant your credit card number.  Technically, they can charge it as many times as they want.  They store it on their system and hackers get millions of credit card numbers when they breach the merchants' systems.  How many times have I been notified that my CC number might have been compromised and I have to get a new card?  I even had fraudulent purchases on my CC before and spent hours on the phone with the CC company explaining that I'm single with no kids -- why would I be buying $1,500 worth of baby supplies?  Even PayPal has automatic payments that I have found myself struggling to "cancel" in the past.

With BTC, you authorize each payment.  There is no way to do automatic payments.  In the absence of someone compromising your personal computer, there is no risk of someone hacking a merchants' system and getting your BTC private key -- you never gave it to them.

This isn't exactly a real-life scenario, but it's a real-life consideration in a world with accelerating levels of identity theft.  If the economy grew such that Bitcoins were frequently accepted online next to fiat, this is a clear advantage for Bitcoin that many consumers can tangibly understand.

[ryann]

Bitcoin is nothing but a fun currency or a way to purchase things illegally. Face it, even if it were to "take off" the govt would shut it down. The ones who disagree with me are just being naive.

[Portnoy]

Bitcoin is nothing but a fun currency or a way to purchase things illegally. Face it, even if it were to "take off" the govt would shut it down.

Which govt... ( there are more than one and they tend not to get along too well most times. )

And how do you turn off something that doesn't have an "off" switch?  Bitcoin doesn't even require "the internet". 

[ryann]

Bitcoin is nothing but a fun currency or a way to purchase things illegally. Face it, even if it were to "take off" the govt would shut it down.

Which govt... ( there are more than one and they tend not to get along too well most times. )

And how do you turn off something that doesn't have an "off" switch?  Bitcoin doesn't even require "the internet". 

First world govt's. You dont "turn it off" you make it illegal. It wont stop completely obviously but no real business will touch it ever if its illegal. Most people will also stop using bitcoin if it becomes illegal. Bitcoin does require the internet. How do you think coins originate?

[Portnoy]

Bitcoin is nothing but a fun currency or a way to purchase things illegally. Face it, even if it were to "take off" the govt would shut it down.

Which govt... ( there are more than one and they tend not to get along too well most times. )

And how do you turn off something that doesn't have an "off" switch?  Bitcoin doesn't even require "the internet".  

First world govt's. You dont "turn it off" you make it illegal. It wont stop completely obviously but no real business will touch it ever if its illegal. Most people will also stop using bitcoin if it becomes illegal.

Perhaps, but it won't be shut down. If first world govts make it illegal some second or third world govts may just adopt it as their official currency.
If first world govts get too draconian in their controls they could end up driving more and more people to use alternative underground systems...

Bitcoin does require the internet. How do you think coins originate?

There are many more networks, and methods of information exchange, than what is known as "the internet".