How to attract late adopter ?

[grau]

I wonder how to attract late adopter of bitcoin.

Like myself... although I was an enthusiastic PGP user 20 years ago, I somehow missed the wave now.
I began buying gold because knew that paper money sucks, as it was below $300 and did well, so I know how it feels for those early in this new theme.

Unfortunately I am late and all good intents, I understand and appreciate leave me thinking that this looks a bit like pyramid for those who are late.

I also wonder how you relate to Gresham's observation that is: bad money drives out good.

Now bitcoin is good, no doubt. But if I have the choice to pay for a gadget using USD or bitcoin I would prefer to give USD and save bitcoins, just like I would not pay with gold until I have anything else of less quality to give away.

If other potential late adopters think like myself how will this economy grow beyond the tulip phase ?

 

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[dodgrr]

candy.

[Are-you-a-wizard?]

There is the possibility of the bitcoin faucet giving say $5 worth of BTC to every person to join over a specific period.

[grau]

There is the possibility of the bitcoin faucet giving say $5 worth of BTC to every person to join over a specific period.

That might help to sustain a pyramid scheme for yet some other round but not for the long run.

Do not get me wrong: I believe in the good intents of the creators here, they even deserve a big chunk of money for creating something of common value for the internet, but I see the construction has to evolve to attract other than get-rich-quick folks.

[flaxindo]

I don't think attracting late adopters will be an issue. If Bitcoin survives it's early growth/volatility phase, the late adopters (who by definition are always late to the party) will get over the "it's new/scary/phony/scam" and start thinking "it's normal".

[grau]

I don't think attracting late adopters will be an issue. If Bitcoin survives it's early growth/volatility phase, the late adopters (who by definition are always late to the party) will get over the "it's new/scary/phony/scam" and start thinking "it's normal".

My point is that there should not be a party and there should not be late or early for this to be adopted by ordinary merchants.

[chad]

Getting more businesses and merchants to accept Bitcoin as payment will do wonders to attract the masses. 

[grau]

You do make a good point, why spend coins when you can spend cash and watch the coins grow in value?
One of the attractions of BitCoin is the ease of use and low transaction fees.

Yes, Bitcoin is constructed for both savings (deflationary) and transactions (anonymity, no transaction fee, no trust).
This noble dual nature makes wide adoption difficult since it is too good to spend.

It seems savings aspect (or I should rather say investment) is currently predominate and even turned into speculation.

I believe we need to focus on how to support bitcoins more for transactions and how to remove speculation incentives without being inflationary.

A concept that might be helpful is to introduce demurrage. I read some references here that this was considered but rejected in design, I could not figure why.

Would someone support me with the arguments why demurrage is not in design ?

[bittencoin]

with the recent hacking events and volatility, there will be more late speculators than late adopters.

[Electrongolf]

I think there needs to be more creativity in terms of what you can do with BTC. Right now, everyone is focused on making money. Nothing wrong with this, but not very interesting. It won't attract people who only know Bitcoin as a pyramid scheme.

I tried to put together a live music showcase, where people Tip artists to play live. Didn't get any interest from the communtity. I would also like to see a game, similar to Second Life. Or maybe a Civilization game. Earn BTC based on skill, not luck.

We need creative ideas beyond investing.

[visburr]

While the design goal of having a strictly limited amount of Bitcoin in the system is a noble one, it is also the biggest flaw.  People will lose hard drives of bitcoin without having a backup.  People will dabble in Bitcoin for a while, maybe acquire some fractional Bitcoin, and then forget about it.  If Bitcoin becomes and remains viable, it is pretty much guaranteed to only go up in value.  If too much leaks out of the system, though, the whole thing might come crashing down.

[BitcoinPorn]

I think there needs to be more creativity in terms of what you can do with BTC. Right now, everyone is focused on making money. Nothing wrong with this, but not very interesting. It won't attract people who only know Bitcoin as a pyramid scheme.

I tried to put together a live music showcase, where people Tip artists to play live. Didn't get any interest from the communtity. I would also like to see a game, similar to Second Life. Or maybe a Civilization game. Earn BTC based on skill, not luck.

We need creative ideas beyond investing.

Agreed.  I like the people trying to get the Poker/Casino stuff going.  But I have yet to see an interface pleasing enough to attract a non hardcore gambler.

The musicians need to get together.  If I had the time, I do have the skills and love of music to throw something together and promote it too.

Shops I think are doing good, people just now need to focus on design and thoughts to attract the every day man rather than just the geek with Bitcoin.   

Shirt designers should have non Bitcoin related goods and start spreading their more general humorous or good designs to regular e-shops like TShirtHell, etsy, et al.

I want to help so many people with design.  I'd accept btc, but I don't know how to price stuff.  The people who are already doing freelance graphic design for btc need to fucking get off their ass, taking a paycut and do some outbound work and help some of these sites out.

[Hunterbunter]

Unfortunately I am late and all good intents, I understand and appreciate leave me thinking that this looks a bit like pyramid for those who are late.

I also wonder how you relate to Gresham's observation that is: bad money drives out good.

Now bitcoin is good, no doubt. But if I have the choice to pay for a gadget using USD or bitcoin I would prefer to give USD and save bitcoins, just like I would not pay with gold until I have anything else of less quality to give away.

If other potential late adopters think like myself how will this economy grow beyond the tulip phase ?

You're not a late adopter. You're still a very early adopter, considering it's about 25% done of all mining. There will eventually be 3000 microBTC available for every human currently on earth. If you have more then that now, you're richer than average, and consider yourself extremely lucky.

Bitcoins are designed to last potentially hundreds of years as a monetary system, and everyone here will be dead long before they reach stable prices.

Of course, that above figure assumes everyone on earth will be able and willing to trade in BTC...more likely it'll only be about 2-3 billion people max, in which case around 5 mBTC will serve you well. If it remains the domain of nerds geeks and speculators, perhaps only 20M will use it, in which case 10 BTC, mineable in a few weeks/month still on average hardware, will be good times.

[btc7]

How to attract male late adopter ?
Easy, show him real tits or promise to show tits a little bit later... Sorry for kidding, but I hope it helps dispel tension.

[grau]

You're not a late adopter. You're still a very early adopter, considering it's about 25% done of all mining.

The bonanza is in mining is over, do not try to trick me into that now low (if any) margin business.

I am after a sustainable model to lure new merchants and discourage speculators.

[ascent]

You're an early adopter of an uncertain new technology that lacks safety, infrastructure, or widespread use. When it has established infrastructure, safety measures that you don't have to worry about, and your average soccer mom is using it, then you're a late adopter.

[gbminer]

Shirt designers should have non Bitcoin related goods and start spreading their more general humorous or good designs to regular e-shops like TShirtHell, etsy, et al.

I'm starting a t shirt design/printing company in a few months and looking at accepting Bitcoin as payment but I'm also struggling to work out how to tier it, do I have a fixed price ie 1 BTC or do I link it to the £10 GBP price I'll be charging and people will have to pay the fluctuating BTC price?

[Hunterbunter]

The bonanza is in mining is over, do not try to trick me into that now low (if any) margin business.

I am after a sustainable model to lure new merchants and discourage speculators.

I understand what you're saying, I mean that it's going to be difficult to discourage speculators until the mining is mostly done, and exchange rates stabilize.

To best find a sustainable model, we can ask: what advantages do bitcoins offer for businesses right now?

The only thing I can think of is people with btc that have nothing to spend them on...everything else is quite unattractive; seedy silk road element, horribly volatile currency exchange, lots of currency speculators not here to spend, only hoard to name a few. The only business I can see anyone paying for right now is security, when everyone is afraid they'll be hacked and lose their BTC before they can save it.

I suppose that's an important start, though...safe BTC is very important to attract business.

[Hunterbunter]

I'm starting a t shirt design/printing company in a few months and looking at accepting Bitcoin as payment but I'm also struggling to work out how to tier it, do I have a fixed price ie 1 BTC or do I link it to the £10 GBP price I'll be charging and people will have to pay the fluctuating BTC price?

That's a very important question, and I'm sure a lot of people wonder that.

In gold rush era, did shovel sellers sell their shovels for 1 gold nugget or 1 USD? Most likely they just accepted both, and the gold nuggets were very cheap (plentiful). As the gold started drying up, the price in gold had to naturally drop, because people just didn't have the money for it.

The same applies here; charge in BTC if that's the economy you want to grow. You'll be forced to change your prices based on how many BTCs are floating around anyway, and you can gauge that based on the exchange rate. Perhaps fixing your price for a month or something, then lowering or raising it for the next month will give start giving the currency a hint of stability. If you think the price for 1 BTC will rise over the month, you will probably be best off undercutting the GBP at the start of the month, and get most of your sales then while it's cheap, and benefit once those BTC are worth more at the end of the month. At the end of the month, when your Tshirts might be considered expensive, you'd naturally get fewer sales, except from those who really have more BTC than they know what to do with.

[BitcoinPorn]

I'm starting a t shirt design/printing company in a few months and looking at accepting Bitcoin as payment but I'm also struggling to work out how to tier it, do I have a fixed price ie 1 BTC or do I link it to the £10 GBP price I'll be charging and people will have to pay the fluctuating BTC price?

I think with e-Commerce, the benefit of taking a BTC is not the profit initially.  I think if anything, you could and maybe should take a little hit price wise, to both give people incentive to get into Bitcoin and use it in a legitimate way, and then of course the word of mouth from that alone should overall be beneficially to your store in the long run.

I hope others can chime in with some thoughts on this, as proven by my sig I am going a different route

However I am more and more getting interested in other aspects.  Like graphic design, I almost want to help the community a little by doing some start up websites logo or something simple, because I notice a lot of people have their heart in their work, but that doesn't mean poop to Joe A Websitevisitor.  I am finding it hard to think of a proper pricing structure myself with that.  I might go with 'for tips'

Back to your e-Commerce though, maybe do something the market hasn't seen before.  Go by the average of whatever the set price of the top 5 markets is on Sunday midnight.  Then for the week make that the "Bitcoin Price" of course if/when the price goes to whatever is opposite of what would be more positive for the customer, take that hit.  It will act as a built in coupon.  Just have a limit that the coupon can't be more than $5-10 or something.   Seems wordy and hard to explain, but I would argue that the Bitcoin customer is a little smarter and maybe would appreciate such a deal.

Just tossing out ideas.