Why all the bitcoin haters?

[ollybee]

Bitcoin has had quite a bit of main stream coverage of late. One thing that has surprised me is the amount of negativity towards it. If we want bitcoin to be successful then some though into why the natural reaction of so many people is so bad.
I think a large part of this is the thought that early adopters are arrogant, who are they to just think they can magic up this money? It's also suspicion, why should they trust people with such an obvious self interest. No doubt jealousy plays it’s part too.
Then there is lack of understanding. The concepts around how bitcoin works are not intuitive, the problems they solve are not obvious. People fear of looking stupid and resent having spending time understanding something they are suspect to be a scam.
Finally people lack vision and expect too much too soon from this young project. Right now using a clunky (sorry) desktop client to pay someone who only accepts bitcoin for fun or publicity does not seem that revolutionary. Observers may not realise there are still aspects of bitcoin being ironed out, such as tiered services and thinner clients. Anyone taking a quick look and just seeing a snapshot of what bitcoin is now misses the point and wonders what ll the fuss is about. As there is zero barrier to entry things could change extremely quickly. Anyone with a use case, from international shipping to my corner shop could start using bitcoin overnight. I think when those who have dismissed bitcoin look again they will then realise the pace of change and direction this thing is heading.

I say this from some personal experience, I didn’t get bitcoin the first time I heard about it for many of the reasons above. Open-transactions seemed much more solid (the potential for interoperability was lost on me) I actually made a point of not reading bicoin articles as I was convinced it was tosh. I did feel stupid when the penny coin finally dropped.

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[BitcoinPorn]

I would say the majority is not understanding of Bitcoin in general and is what causes the negativity.

Enjoy it, it will keep the markets fun.

[BiggieJohn]

anything different must be stopped. 
The system we have now is working, has worked for over 200 years, why change it.

change is bad. change is evil.  change must be stopped.




The above views ARE not my own, but simply a representation of popular views that seemed appropriate to express in this thread

[jsttn]

I would say people don't like non-traditional things, completely digital things, and deregulated things. Also BitCoins are complicated (I'm still learning all the details) thus people criticize what they can't understand.

[cothoms]

a hater is nothing more than an outspoken skeptic, and new technologies/ideas will always have their fair share of skeptics, and even more so when that new thing operates outside of the familiar realm (such as Bitcoin, an unregulated, decentralized commodity acting as a currency)

[kwiky]

ppl fear what they dont understand.

[gusti]

ppl fear what they dont understand.

hate to early adopters, sheep behaviour, fear for change, not having a life

[btc7]

They have same reason as poor people who hate any reach... Old good story..

[Alex Beckenham]

ppl fear what they dont understand.

sheep behaviour

I think this is the #1 factor on Slashdot these days... If you hate Bitcoin, other Slashdotters will think you're cool.

[Gabi]

Because "virtual money? Ahahah, didn't you see all the news about anon and lulzsec hacking everything? Virtual money is madness, they will just hack it!"

[Nagle]

Why all the haters? 

• The "early adopters" and promoters already have most of the Bitcoins.
• The "exchanges" and "exchangers" are all on the flaky side.
• The volatility is so high that nobody can afford to take Bitcoins for real merchandise.
• The entire Bitcoin market does less volume than one supermarket.
• The "mining" thing is silly.

It could be worse, though. We could have a virtual currency run by Zynga.

[kokjo]

It could be worse, though. We could have a virtual currency run by Zynga.

+1

[ploum]

Like Nagie, most of reactions are:

- The early adopters will be really rich if it works, which is unfair
- I've let my computer generate coins for two days without result. It cannot work that way.
- You cannot buy anything interesting with bitcoins
- You are not sure if your bitcoin will keep its value in the future (yes, it contradicts number 1 but that's it).

[cnbtcn]

the haters are terrified of bitcoins huge potential to change the world, for the better and forever

[cothoms]

the haters are terrified of bitcoins huge potential to change the world, for the better and forever

I honestly don't think they are scared of BTC, or its potential.  The skeptics aren't jealous; they are just skeptical.  BTC has some very apparent flaws, so in most cases, their hesitancy is somewhat logical.

[XX55XX]

The key issue is that the early adopters have nearly all of the cards.

And BTC has grown so fast that a more safe and legitimate exchange market around the currency has yet to fully mature and be completely safe to use.

[ollybee]

I'm worried that the natural aversion to something that seems unfair will mean bitcoin does not achieve it's potential. the problem is exacerbated by the fact that people fear that it is not only unfair but could directly affect should an early adopter unload. Fortunately I don't think that will happen (in way that affect ordinary folk) and in time when prices are more stable the resentment will fade. Traditional finance is full of injustice and imbalance but people ignore this, the same will be true of bitcoin in future.

[chewybacca]

When just signing up for the service itself quadruples the number of possible points of intrusion into my financial ecosystem, why?

And my single CPU is competing against server farms, how is this not just a psychology test to see how greed can overcome self-integrity?

I can prove to myself that Bitcoin will increase in value, but purchasing them requires me to surrender whatever good financial practices I already have in place. Gamble-me Gamble-you.

My point is that there sure are a lot of hurdles to overcome, and that anyone choosing to believe dark promises, or promote uncertain gains, must be familiar with such a landscape.

Beware ye all who enter here- type stuff.

[minor_miner]

I think all the Hater-Arguments have been said already.

I for myself would like to add some praise to all this hate: The whole bitcoin concept is not really hard to grasp (if you invest a few hours), would almost say simple, but am reluctant to do so because it's genius and i would feel like a heretic

- OpenSource
- P2P --> can't be shut down by government or something/-one else
- instant wiring of money from A to B
- anonymous
- No transaction fees if you want it that way --> based on donations
- complete transaction-history can be viewed
- almost certainly immune to double spending
- limited amount of Coins available to counteract inflation
- 8 decimal places ensure usability even when the exchange rates goes up to 1000 $ or more

Maybe there's more but that are the first things I can think of.

How can one possibly not welcome our new currency overlord?

[makomk]

- You are not sure if your bitcoin will keep its value in the future (yes, it contradicts number 1 but that's it).

That's part of the problem, actually - there's no contradiction between the early adopters getting rich and bitcoin failing to keep its value in the future. All that's required for them to get rich is for the price to go high enough for long enough and with enough BTC-USD trading volume. Once that's been managed, the whole thing can fail spectacularly and they'll still have a small fortune if they've played their cards right. In fact, it's possible the process of them cashing out will be partly what triggers the whole thing to fail spectacularly.