How Average Joe thinks about Bitcoin

[bambino]

The comments at the bottom of this article are hilarious.

Many of them seem to echo this sentiment:
"Bitcoin started by an unknown in 2009 and people are buying into it. I think there is going to be a lot people either very broke or very disappointed in the end. Someone is making money here and it probably isn't the average Joe."

Misinformed? Clearly.
Knee-jerk reaction? Definitely.
Should be dismissed? I'm not sure.

Well, when you start making money off of it as a financial investment alone, you stop being an average Joe. The main question is whether the coins are consolidating in fewer hands, and I think the trend is in the opposite direction. The goal is not to eliminate the rich, but to decrease the barriers of entry for everyone. We need enough players with diverse interests to remove the risk of monopolistic behavior, but that's about it.

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[Brooker]

Who really cares what the Average Joe thinks right now? It doesn't matter what they think of it, today, tomorrow or months from now. What matters is what they think of it in the near future. I'm sure the Avergae Joe wasn't impressed by the internet when they forst heard of it. I'd rather it have a slow growth as well. Gives me more time to get more bitcoins before the public catch on.

[LiteCoinGuy]

well informed and wise people.

[LitcoinCollector]

Lets see in ten years what the average joe will think about bitcoin.

[Bitbirdhunt]

Average Joe just simply doesn't know enough about bitcoin, he doesn't get the concept, he doesn't understand, the source code is alien, the blockchain is alien too.

[giveBTCpls]

I like this because it shows we (people in this forum learning about Bitcoin) will still be considered pioneers. Once people GET IT, the price will be fucking ridiculous and we are lucky to be here already.

[itsAj]

The comments at the bottom of this article are hilarious.

Many of them seem to echo this sentiment:
"Bitcoin started by an unknown in 2009 and people are buying into it. I think there is going to be a lot people either very broke or very disappointed in the end. Someone is making money here and it probably isn't the average Joe."

Misinformed? Clearly.
Knee-jerk reaction? Definitely.
Should be dismissed? I'm not sure.

What they are saying is that they think bitcoin is either going to be very successful or a failure. When they say people are going to be broke they are saying it might be a failure, when they say people are going to be disappointed they are saying it is going to be very successful (people will be disappointed they did not buy into it earlier).

Satoshi even agrees with this idea. I believe he said something along the lines that in 30 years there will either be a huge number of bitcoin transactions or barely any at all.

[Ruthful]

Even if that person is interested in bitcoin doesn't mean s/he will adopt bitcoin .Frankly, bitcoin is worthless to me right now .It solves absolutely no problem for me and the thing that it does really well( money tranfer ) actually cost more than the mainstream  that it's trying to replace.So no, I don't see myself using bitcoin and I consider myself more knowledgeable about bitcoin that the average joe.

I think you are misinformed as to the cost of sending a transaction. You can usually send a TX for free under the right circumstances, or if the TX is over a certain size then it will generally cost you ~$0.05 (.0001 BTC).

As it stands, the cost of obtaining the coin itself and converting it back to fiat basically killed any savings( and add more cost) it would give if I use it as money remittance tool, and that is before I factored in the TX fee.

The TX fee also is a problem if you want to use it for very small transaction here.Say I want to buy  one canned non alcoholic beverage(doest matter if it's carbonated or not) ,I would be paying 10%( after converting to local currency) more due to the TX alone! Not that any vendors here accept cryptos in the first place.

[leannemckim46]

Even if that person is interested in bitcoin doesn't mean s/he will adopt bitcoin .Frankly, bitcoin is worthless to me right now .It solves absolutely no problem for me and the thing that it does really well( money tranfer ) actually cost more than the mainstream  that it's trying to replace.So no, I don't see myself using bitcoin and I consider myself more knowledgeable about bitcoin that the average joe.

I think you are misinformed as to the cost of sending a transaction. You can usually send a TX for free under the right circumstances, or if the TX is over a certain size then it will generally cost you ~$0.05 (.0001 BTC).

As it stands, the cost of obtaining the coin itself and converting it back to fiat basically killed any savings( and add more cost) it would give if I use it as money remittance tool, and that is before I factored in the TX fee.

The TX fee also is a problem if you want to use it for very small transaction here.Say I want to buy  one canned non alcoholic beverage(doest matter if it's carbonated or not) ,I would be paying 10%( after converting to local currency) more due to the TX alone! Not that any vendors here accept cryptos in the first place.

The cost to buy on most exchanges is .2% as a lower bound. The cost to buy bitcoin on consumer/newbie friendly coinbase is 1%. If you had to pay a $0.05 TX fee on a $0.99 purchase then you would pay ~5% on the TX fee, plus 1% on the purchase of bitcoin for a total of 6%.

Now if you were to do the same transaction with a credit card then the merchant would likely pay $0.29 as a flat fee for processing the credit card transaction plus 3% based on the dollar amount. This would add up to roughly 33%. Granted, you do not pay for this, the merchant does, however this is ultimately reflected on the merchant's prices. Even worse, there are some merchants that would choose to decline your business if you are paying with a credit card for a $0.99 transaction, so you would end up paying nothing for the transaction, but would be thirsty.

[Ruthful]

The cost to buy on most exchanges is .2% as a lower bound. The cost to buy bitcoin on consumer/newbie friendly coinbase is 1%. If you had to pay a $0.05 TX fee on a $0.99 purchase then you would pay ~5% on the TX fee, plus 1% on the purchase of bitcoin for a total of 6%.

That'll would be on top of the cost of transferring money out of my country in the first place to buy those bitcoin.

If you had to pay a $0.05 TX fee on a $0.99 purchase then you would pay ~5% on the TX fee, plus 1% on the purchase of bitcoin for a total of 6%Now if you were to do the same transaction with a credit card then the merchant would likely pay $0.29 as a flat fee for processing the credit card transaction plus 3% based on the dollar amount. This would add up to roughly 33%. Granted, you do not pay for this, the merchant does, however this is ultimately reflected on the merchant's prices. Even worse, there are some merchants that would choose to decline your business if you are paying with a credit card for a $0.99 transaction, so you would end up paying nothing for the transaction, but would be thirsty.

Why would I used a credit card for a such transaction ? I might as well used cash (like a usually did) and incur no additional fees at all.

BTW, the price canned drink is around here is about 0.40 USD(give or take a few cent), so it really is 10% more expensive(not counting the cost of obtaining the bitcoin). To put into perspective , the price of  a single Bitcoin at its lowest this year was still higher than the minimum wage(which is around 300USD).

[Timo Y]

It's easy to underestimate just how much time people need to get their head around new paradigms. Even technically-minded people find it hard to get their head around Bitcoin. Imagine how hard it is for Average Joe. This negative reaction in the comments above is natural and unsurprising. It will only evaporate after many, many repeated exposures to the technology.

[Lethn]

As usual these are opinions based on pure ignorance, it's like watching people fight over politics, they clearly have no fucking clue what they're on about other than what propaganda feeds them and haven't actually got their own opinions, either that or they've deliberately chosen not to have any.

I don't think it's all hopeless though because I'm having some much more refreshing conversations with friends and family and such about Bitcoin because they're recognising the usual bullshit news organisations say about the currency and they're actually going and looking beyond it because the 'documentaries' and news items are just completely made up in some most cases and they're picking up on it.

[Jerome?]

Average Joe just simply doesn't know enough about bitcoin, he doesn't get the concept, he doesn't understand, the source code is alien, the blockchain is alien too.

Average joe needs more education about btc

[ritamartindel]

great in all says

[NYCBitcoinCenter]

The average joe will adopt bitcoin when we give .01 coins to joe(s). right?

[minerpumpkin]

Yeah the public sentiment about Bitcoin is a rather bad one. That's also the main reason why I'm sometimes uncertain if it will ever really get accepted by the mainstream. Still, I remain confident, since it isn't backed by a single entity, but by many that work together and in competition at the same time!

[keithers]

I think the tipping point for "the average Joe" as OP puts it will be once either Amazon, Paypal, or Apple  (or a company of that magnitude), implements BTC into their payment systems.   Although that logic doesn't make sense, the general public is often not very logical. 

Once a company of this size implements BTC, BTC will really be front page news and the average Joes will have to realize that BTC is not a Ponzi Scheme, nor is it a company that was shut down. 

[tsoPANos]

These are the people who will look so sad when bitcoin gets global awareness and recognition.

[csis]

Most people are just simply misinformed by mainstream media and intimidated by the nerdyness. I tell my friends the internet never shrinks, the intetent of everything is real. Even money....

[keithers]

Most people are just simply misinformed by mainstream media and intimidated by the nerdyness. I tell my friends the internet never shrinks, the intetent of everything is real. Even money....

The media completely controls most people's way of thinking depending on how they feel like filtering and conveying news and developments.  It really is a shame that the general public cannot get unbiased news...  I believe Al Jazeeer (spelling?) was trying to do "real" news, but I don't know whatever happened to that...