Fact check:
Starbucks is a premium coffee chain and frankly how many people drink their coffee on a daily basis? So Startbucks accepting bitcoin is not a big news in terms of adoption!
I disagree. When a
global franchise like Startbucks make bold decisions like this, you get a ripple affect on the smaller retail industry, because they look at the bigger franchises for guidance. On January 9, 2014, Overstock.com became the first major retailer to start accepting bitcoin as payments for its goods and this caused a flood of smaller retailers, who followed their example.
This decision is also crucial, because a lot of people criticised Bitcoin in the early days for not being cost affective enough to buy something as inexpensive as a cup of coffee. We are now showing the world that Bitcoin matured enough, that you can buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin now.
Haters gonna hate, you know. The fact that you'll be able to buy a coffee inexpensive and in a not-too-long period of time is indeed something worth telling, but the haters will clearly ignore that.
On the other hand, Starbucks can do "magic". People learn from each other. And when one will see how easily did another pay with Bitcoin, his views may change, he may start ignoring the haters and follow the facts (and start using Bitcoin). This will happen in addition to what you said about smaller businesses copying what Starbucks do.
Yes, NF, that's how I would look at it as well. People in line at Starbucks would watch someone paying with
BTC, and be curious. Some would then go on to join the BTC Community. At some point, we hope, enough people would learn (via Starbucks or whatever other merchants taking BTC) what crypto is all about.
Then, we hope, BTC reaches critical mass and takes off. It still could take some time, but we may not be too far off from seeing mass adoption.
