So what?
You are coming off with some BIG blocker talking points and trying to suggest that bitcoin has value only if it can be used for retail right now?
I said nothing of the sort
You said that bitcoin is not a good fit for retail at this time, and you suggested that there is some kind of urgency to fix bitcoin or to lose and opportunity and bitcoin was NOT doing what it should be doing...blah blah blah..
In other words... good enough for me to conclude that either you have been BIG BLOCKER brainwashed or you are one of those nutjobs...
There is no artificial narrow window opportunity that you assert.
That is a matter of opinion. I fully understand that the LN devs need to take their time and absolutely get this right, but the longer it takes the more opportunity there is for an alt to seize the, currently unserved, retail use case.
Yeah, right. Who fucking cares? If ethereum or bcash is able to develop their currency and retail use cases, then let them. Why does it matter?
And, why would that even matter? If bitcoin is able to later improve various micro-transactions in terms of fees and speeds, then no one would use bitcoin because these other crypto systems are supposedly already being used? Seems like you are just making up a problem on a bunch of supposed hypotheticals and creating your own sense of time pressures.
With the passage of time bitcoin is going to grow and grow and grow, so who gives a ratt's ass about if you can buy coffee with it today at this particular moment?
Certainly not me, and I have stated as much on a number of occasions. As I said above, I support cores choices to prioritize security and decentralization at the expense of speed and thrift.
Perhaps we agree about this point? I will use whatever seems most feasible to buy a cup of coffee, and if it were feasible to use bitcoin, then perhaps I would use bitcoin - even though at this moment we are not there, and we are not even seeming to be close to that - even though maybe 1 year ago the fees and transaction times would have allowed us to use bitcoin to buy coffee.
You can quote me in posterity if you like, but I would be a bit surprised if in 5 years buying coffee would be impractical with bitcoin or some affiliated means - but even if bitcoin remains impractical for buying coffee in 5 years, so fucking what? I believe that bitcoin still has decent odds of being at least 50% more valuable than today, and also likely the dominant crypto... if it is NOT then, I will likely also have moved over to that other bitcoin killer crypto that took its place.
TLDR: I doubt that investing in bitcoin is betting on the wrong horse, even if bitcoin is currently not practical at this time to use to buy coffee or other small retail.
I agree with all this and am in full agreement with holding the line on BTCs store of value use case. That said, the retail use case WILL be served, and soon, if not by LN then by a well engineered alt with a strong dev team. As time drags on I will be keeping my eye out for that.
Sounds like an artificially created problem if you believe that there can only be one mutually exclusive payment processor .. especially while it seems quite likely to me that the next 5 to 10 years are going to have a lot of transitions, development, adoption and even building of user-friendliness before globally scaling... You likely appreciate that we do not just go from zero to global scaling of any system whether that be a micro-transacting system, a storage of value system or one that includes both of those use cases plus other use cases ( that are likely even currently unknown use cases).