Bitcoin isn't worth it for consumers. And that will stop adoption.

[BittBurger]

Playing devils advocate here.

It's been bothering me lately, thinking about this. Consumers have absolutely no motivation to use Bitcoin. And because of that, I don't understand how it will ever go global.

All the motivation is for merchants. They avoid merchant fees. They get no chargebacks.  But they're also going to get no sales (aside from enthusiasts), because consumers have no incentive to use it, whatsoever.

Where are the perks for consumers, in a situation where they're buying something with bitcoin?

The only benefit Bitcoin brings to consumers, is money transfers. People who send money Home to their families in other countries. Bitcoin will corner the market that Western Union currently dominates. And probably put it out of business. While that is a huge industry, it's a fraction of how big Bitcoin could become if consumers used it for purchasing.

What incentive do consumers have to use Bitcoin at all? None. And because of that, it's never going to be adopted worldwide. Again, playing devils advocate here. I want to hear people's responses to this. Because in my mind, it seems to be true. And that is depressing.

You may say, it's just like cash, what motivation do people have to use cash. Or it adds a level of privacy. But these aren't significant enough benefits for a worldwide paradigm change. We're talking about adopting a new paradigm here. There needs to be incentive, for people to even bother making a huge change like this. Especially when it's more difficult than cash. More confusing than cash. More ugly than cash, requiring people to understand several decimal place fractions and other complicated things. So not only is there zero incentive to use it, but there are several reasons why they wouldn't.

There needs to be something huge, global, significant, about Bitcoin that will motivate people who buy things to say "Forget this silly cash! Forget my credit cards!"

Tell me why this is wrong. Please.

[PenAndPaper]

Because you 'll probably be able to make payments just by clicking a link. No logins, no forms to fill, no need to move money in and out of payment proceross, minimal fees and a lot more.
But for all those things to happen, wider acceptance must be established so that the price can stabilize.

[ex-trader]

I have been making the same point about lack of real transactions in Bitcoins for a long time and no-one ever has an answer. As has been detailed it simply doesn't work for most normal transactions (too slow/too volatile in price/lack of recourse for buyer) as follows in comparisons:

vs cash/cards in person - too slow, I can pass someone banknotes in a shop and we are done in 5 seconds, I cannot wait 10mins to 2 hours for the BTC to pass

vs credit cards on-line - there is no price-saving and I lose the right to protection I have with cards and on-line is where I need protection most

vs Western Union etc for money transfer - I might be able to save money on fees, but I don't know what the currency will be valued at when it arrives even if only 10 minutes later

I keep searching for stats on real transaction on Bitcoins (ie buying legal goods/services) and guess what where aren't any and no-one wants to dig too deep because the truth is painful. Of course everyone on here is long BTC so needs to keep the story going......

[NickNick]

Playing devils advocate here.

It's been bothering me lately, thinking about this. Consumers have absolutely no motivation to use Bitcoin. And because of that, I don't understand how it will ever go global.

All the motivation is for merchants. They avoid merchant fees. They get no chargebacks.  But they're also going to get no sales (aside from enthusiasts), because consumers have no incentive to use it, whatsoever.

Where are the perks for consumers, in a situation where they're buying something with bitcoin?

The only benefit Bitcoin brings to consumers, is money transfers. People who send money Home to their families in other countries. Bitcoin will corner the market that Western Union currently dominates. And probably put it out of business. While that is a huge industry, it's a fraction of how big Bitcoin could become if consumers used it for purchasing.

What incentive do consumers have to use Bitcoin at all? None. And because of that, it's never going to be adopted worldwide. Again, playing devils advocate here. I want to hear people's responses to this. Because in my mind, it seems to be true. And that is depressing.

You may say, it's just like cash, what motivation do people have to use cash. Or it adds a level of privacy. But these aren't significant enough benefits for a worldwide paradigm change. We're talking about adopting a new paradigm here. There needs to be incentive, for people to even bother making a huge change like this. Especially when it's more difficult than cash. More confusing than cash. More ugly than cash, requiring people to understand several decimal place fractions and other complicated things. So not only is there zero incentive to use it, but there are several reasons why they wouldn't.

There needs to be something huge, global, significant, about Bitcoin that will motivate people who buy things to say "Forget this silly cash! To the trash with my credit cards!"

Tell me why this is wrong. Pleas

Some arguments (certainly not all):

1) If BTC cuts some costs for merchants, it will for consumers too. In a competitive economy, either BTC businesses will be less expensive or BTC paid merchandise will be discounted.
2) I pay some indirect costs for having access to my traditional bank services, I cannot really send cash at a distance.
3) The value of a BTC is also a bet on the development of the ecology around the bitcoin protocol. For now what exists resembles traditional businesses. But what in the future? I am personally sure that, in the years to come, we will see flourish services that can only be proposed in BTC. Just as an tasty example, in a week, I invested in a BTC gambling site (in a currency different from the one in use in my country), made a profit and took my bitcoins (plus interest) back. I never saw that possible with money.

[jaked]

The main value of Bitcoin is its lack of inflation.
That gives it an extreme desirability, and is what IMO drives its current uphill movement.
People are willing to pay huge sums for it, even if they can't quite spend it directly. That alone proves that it's value doesn't depend on its consumerization ability.

Anyway, merchants of course, will prefer it too over fiat currencies, and will find ways to incentivize customers to make purchases with it.

[zeroday]

I'm a consumer and bitcoins really worth for me.

I spend bitcoins for many things like buying domains and servers, paying freelancers for their work, ordering electronics and food.
I'm really glad to realize that everything I buy becomes cheaper and cheaper in time

[halfawake]

In a lot of ways, you're absolutely right.  

I think merchants can help bitcoin (and in many cases already do) by giving price discounts on bitcoin purchases.  It makes logical sense to do this for the merchant for two reasons: the rising price of bitcoin means they can lower the price significantly and still make a profit, and the transaction fees are substantially lower than credit cards.

That said, most bitcoin merchants are still relatively unknown to mainstream consumers.  Which leaves the obvious question of trust: is it worth the discount to the consumer to forgo the benefits of using credit cards?  I'm not talking about things like credit card points, but zero liability.  If you lose your credit card, with pretty much all credit card issuers, you aren't liable for any purchases made on it.  Ditto if someone hacks steals your credit card number and makes purchases with it.  

None of that is true with bitcoins.  Lose your private key?  You're shit out of luck.  Ditto if you happen to make the mistake of storing your bitcoins in a hot wallet, or keeping them with someone who did, as those of us who invested with Coinlender discovered.  If I get lucky and the price of bitcoin crashes down to roughly where it was when I bought my bitcoins, I may very well buy more as another investment.  But I've learned my lesson from Coinlenders, and if I do that, my only investment will be bitcoin itself, in a cold wallet where they can't easily be stolen.

Could bitcoin become worth it for consumers?  Absolutely, and in some narrow cases, I think it already is: cases like in person transactions where there's no counterparty risk, or online purchases that are small enough where the merchant is willing to accept zero or one confirmations at most.  But it's probably going to be a while for everything else, as a "banking system", bitcoin is about where the US Dollar was in the 1920's, back when no FDIC insurance existed for deposits.  Some people could get very rich off it, and others will lose everything they invested.  As a technology, it's a bit like the internet in the early 1990's.

[foggyb]

I'm a consumer and bitcoins really worth for me.

I spend bitcoins for many things like buying domains and servers, paying freelancers for their work, ordering electronics and food.
I'm really glad to realize that everything I buy becomes cheaper and cheaper in time

Same here. Bitcoin is very attractive to me as a consumer. Bitcoin itself is the 'huge, global, significant thing', potentially a bigger technological development than the internet IMO. Its going to change everything, because to most people these days, money is everything.

[kireinaha]

It`s like you read my mind, Bitt.  In the responses above, what I`m seeing can be summarized into two thoughts:

1. It will bring prices down for merchants, which will trickle down to consumers, which gives everyone an incentive to use it.

This isn`t good enough. I guarantee you consumers will not stand for a payment system which gives them no recourse. Spend 10 minutes in the scam alert section of the forum for an idea of how many people have been burned by bitcoin transactions, and that`s the early adopters, people who generally understand the bitcoin protocol and its inner workings. Once people hear how their friends are getting burned by bitcoin transactions, they will stop using it, which means it can never be used for regular, everyday transactions. All I can think of to resolve something like this is to put a middleman in between the consumer and merchant -- sort of like Bitpay -- but then, there would obviously be some kind of fee involved which defeats the whole purpose of leaving credit cards in the first place.

2. I like to use bitcoin, it`s convenient for me.

That`s great, but you`re in an extremely small minority here. Most -- even amongst the bitcoin community itself -- would rather hold onto their BTC until the value stops surging upwards. I guess there might be some people on here who don`t have credit cards or even debit cards and just need a way to spend money online, so in such cases, bitcoin can work for you.

I agree with Bitt`s `devil`s advocate` writeup in so much that bitcoin could revolutionize the money transfer industry in some ways, but that`s about it. I`m not sure if that alone justifies it`s current value of $850 per coin...

[beetcoin]

one incentive: BTC is a deflationary currency and, chances are that if you buy at $10, in 1 year that $10 is worth more.. so you have more purchasing power.

another: it's a world currency that can be accepted anywhere with internet access. travelling from europe to china? no problem.. your money is the same everywhere.

[Abdussamad]

Bitcoin is turning into a store of value rather than a medium of exchange. It is behaving like gold. People buy gold not because they want to use it to buy stuff at the corner shop but because they want something that is supposed to be immune to inflation i.e. a store of wealth. In Bitcoin's case if you get in now there's a good chance you will make money too over and above the rate of inflation.

The biggest fear is that Bitcoin is just some elaborate project by the NSA to capture the entire world's wealth. They could enslave us if this is the case.

[PenAndPaper]

The biggest fear is that Bitcoin is just some elaborate project by the NSA to capture the entire world's wealth. They could enslave us if this is the case.

Not sure if sarcastic or if i have to wear my tinfoil hat  

[Abdussamad]

The biggest fear is that Bitcoin is just some elaborate project by the NSA to capture the entire world's wealth. They could enslave us if this is the case.

Not sure if sarcastic or if i have to wear my tinfoil hat  

You haven't kept up with recent world events have you? In case you didn't know the NSA has been spying on the whole planet and is up to no good. Is it that hard to imagine that the a shadowy US secret agency that employs the best cryptographers in the world would want us to store our wealth in crypto currency for it's own nefarious purposes?

[PenAndPaper]

You haven't kept up with recent world events have you? In case you didn't know the NSA has been spying on the whole planet and is up to no good.

Really? A spy agency spies on people? That's a socker 
Seriously talking rigged encryption algorithms might be true but the nsa inventing bitcoins is unlikely to say the least, and noone's biggest fear whatsoever.

[Abdussamad]

You haven't kept up with recent world events have you? In case you didn't know the NSA has been spying on the whole planet and is up to no good.

Really? A spy agency spies on people? That's a socker  
Seriously talking rigged encryption algorithms might be true but the nsa inventing bitcoins is unlikely to say the least, and noone's biggest fear whatsoever.

It's big enough to get at least one of the core developers investigating (or at least wondering):

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=289795.msg3270483#msg3270483

[Ford]

Playing devils advocate here.

It's been bothering me lately, thinking about this. Consumers have absolutely no motivation to use Bitcoin. And because of that, I don't understand how it will ever go global.

All the motivation is for merchants. They avoid merchant fees. They get no chargebacks.  But they're also going to get no sales (aside from enthusiasts), because consumers have no incentive to use it, whatsoever.

Where are the perks for consumers, in a situation where they're buying something with bitcoin?

The only benefit Bitcoin brings to consumers, is money transfers. People who send money Home to their families in other countries. Bitcoin will corner the market that Western Union currently dominates. And probably put it out of business. While that is a huge industry, it's a fraction of how big Bitcoin could become if consumers used it for purchasing.

What incentive do consumers have to use Bitcoin at all? None. And because of that, it's never going to be adopted worldwide. Again, playing devils advocate here. I want to hear people's responses to this. Because in my mind, it seems to be true. And that is depressing.

You may say, it's just like cash, what motivation do people have to use cash. Or it adds a level of privacy. But these aren't significant enough benefits for a worldwide paradigm change. We're talking about adopting a new paradigm here. There needs to be incentive, for people to even bother making a huge change like this. Especially when it's more difficult than cash. More confusing than cash. More ugly than cash, requiring people to understand several decimal place fractions and other complicated things. So not only is there zero incentive to use it, but there are several reasons why they wouldn't.

There needs to be something huge, global, significant, about Bitcoin that will motivate people who buy things to say "Forget this silly cash! Forget my credit cards!"

Tell me why this is wrong. Please.

I agree things need to get better yet, so that bitcoin is easier to spend for the average person.

But people will be happy to pay in any currency the merchant will accept. i dont think it is down to incentives to the consumer.
(I.e i would happily pay my gas bill with potatoes if they would accept them, i need no other incentive.)
There are little incentive to use Visa to pay for anything, other than that is how "the merchant" wants paying (there is consumer protection though, although this is at the expense/forced on the merchant).

I would say, that the more merchants that accept bitcoin, the more consumers will use it to pay for things. So the efforts to get bitcoin adopted more widely, should be focused more towards providing good merchant tools, and less focus on incentivising the consumer to pay  in bitcoin, as that will come anyway...

Ford

[BittBurger]

I understand most of the responses, but I also agree that there doesn't seem to be anything big enough to power a paradigm change.  At all. There are definitely some minor benefits to the consumer.  

Currently bitcoin has nearly zero consumer protection in place. I raised this issue on the bitcoin foundation forums, and my understanding is that they are working on it. Or rather, it's not even their job to work on it. It's the job of the various companies overlaying the bitcoin protocol, providing services, that should be providing the consumer protections. Something like that.

But if you lined up 100 consumers, and tried to convince them why bitcoin is better than Cash or credit cards, I think you would fail. I don't think they would see the relevance of it, unless they regularly send money home to family in other countries. The ability to use a smart phone to make purchases, might be the only slightly relevant benefit. I don't know if that's significant enough to motivate a worldwide currency change.

[Ecurb123]

this may be true in the US and other countries with stable money systems, but I think it could be really interesting for the rest.   

[corebob]

I understand most of the responses, but I also agree that there doesn't seem to be anything big enough to power a paradigm change.  At all. There are definitely some minor benefits to the consumer.  

Currently bitcoin has nearly zero consumer protection in place. I raised this issue on the bitcoin foundation forums, and my understanding is that they are working on it. Or rather, it's not even their job to work on it. It's the job of the various companies overlaying the bitcoin protocol, providing services, that should be providing the consumer protections. Something like that.

But if you lined up 100 consumers, and tried to convince them why bitcoin is better than Cash or credit cards, I think you would fail. I don't think they would see the relevance of it, unless they regularly send money home to family in other countries. The ability to use a smart phone to make purchases, might be the only slightly relevant benefit. I don't know if that's significant enough to motivate a worldwide currency change.

imo bitcoin is just the beginning. Anything can happen, and I believe it will.
Its not ready for the average, slave mentality, mouse in a wheel kind of consumers. And I don't think it should be just yet.
Getting ahead of our self is just going to hurt development.

[foggyb]

Currently bitcoin has nearly zero consumer protection in place. I raised this issue on the bitcoin foundation forums, and my understanding is that they are working on it. Or rather, it's not even their job to work on it. It's the job of the various companies overlaying the bitcoin protocol, providing services, that should be providing the consumer protections. Something like that.

But if you lined up 100 consumers, and tried to convince them why bitcoin is better than Cash or credit cards, I think you would fail. I don't think they would see the relevance of it, unless they regularly send money home to family in other countries. The ability to use a smart phone to make purchases, might be the only slightly relevant benefit. I don't know if that's significant enough to motivate a worldwide currency change.

When you say consumer protection, you mean protection from shady internet sellers, right? Well, that's not a bitcoin problem.  Merchants already offer consumer protection for digital payments on the internet.

1. Ebay protects buyers by guaranteeing that you'll get what you pay for or your money back.
2. Amazon protects consumers by facilitating trade between online entrepreneurs and shoppers.

Both of these sites do not accept USD directly, they mainly take paypal and credit cards, which are both digital overlay systems with MORE risk than bitcoin, ironically. But by adding significant fees to compensate for fraud, these companies together with credit card and banking industries have found a way to make it work.