Why consumers are not adopting BTC

[tzortz]

Is an unstable product.

[1713289027]

1713289027

[1713289027]

1713289027

[Ruthful]

No, Not this ^.
It may not be user friendly yet, but it is the fastest, cheapest, and safest way to buy online.

While I can't comment on whether it is the fastest way to shop online, it's sure as hell ain't the cheapest.Pound for pound it cost more to use bitcoin for consumers.And safest?The lack of chargeback is  not attractive to buyers.

You may think that your credit card is faster and cheaper, but it is not. It takes 2-5 days to process that transaction and determine if the sale was legit.

It doesn't matter if it takes that long, credit card is a very trusted the point that the transaction is as good as confirmed the moment you swipe your card despite  the fact the money would take several days to reach them.

 

 Once it does the seller pays fees of about 3%, which is passed on to you. And that may be the tip of the fee iceburg. You may pay all manor of fees, hidden or not.

And this is different from the several percent mark up from buying bictcoin how?That of course assuming the best case scenario that the merchant would offer discount for bitcoin purchases.
 

lastly, it has become unsafe to use credit cards. I am replacing my debit card for the second time this year due to data breaches. I have no idea who now has my banking information. With bitcoin I can post my overstock.com password and account name without worry. Since there is no card info and no route back to my bitcoins, the best an attacker could do is see my earlier purchases.

Did you try charge back on those transactions? That is one appeal of credit card that bitcoin lacks.While I sympathise with your experience there are ways to minimise risk of such thing happening on-line.Besides , if you have no idea how the criminal got your info , chances are you have a bigger security threat at hand.


For non-online retail,  bitcoin still offers no advantage to using fiat at all.

[SideShow]

Consumers aren't changing there opinions about something as big as there method of payment on daily basis, The current system took many years to be as established in people's opinions as it's today so BTC might take sometime. also BTC is currently being used to buy/sell (look at overstock's records, amagimetals "precious metals company that used BTC and getting a % of it's sales from BTC).

[paulsonnumismatics]

Is an unstable product.

Thats nonsense. What i do when i sell something for BTC in my brick and mortar store is the following:

I sell a $40 item. User pays me 10M satoshis. My profit is about 2.5 million sat. I instantly sells in my exchange of choice 9 Mill sats for fiat. The other Mil. its sent to one small account back in the warehouse. Maybe is my retirement plan and i dont know yet :-) But i can happily take a 10% apart from a sale than maybe without BTC would have never realized, who knows.
the stability of the coin vs. fiat can modify my transaction during lets say, 1 hour. After that, all is done and im a happy camper.... I still dont get why 99% of merchants dont accept BTC. its absurd.

[TheClownSong]

Is an unstable product.

Thats nonsense. What i do when i sell something for BTC in my brick and mortar store is the following:

I sell a $40 item. User pays me 10M satoshis. My profit is about 2.5 million sat. I instantly sells in my exchange of choice 9 Mill sats for fiat. The other Mil. its sent to one small account back in the warehouse. Maybe is my retirement plan and i dont know yet :-) But i can happily take a 10% apart from a sale than maybe without BTC would have never realized, who knows.
the stability of the coin vs. fiat can modify my transaction during lets say, 1 hour. After that, all is done and im a happy camper.... I still dont get why 99% of merchants dont accept BTC. its absurd.

Bitcoin is not a good vehicle to use for savings as you describe. The price is not stable enough and it is unknown where the price will be in 6 months, let alone years/decades.

I would say that once places like Dell and Overstock realize just how much less it costs for them to accept bitcoin then to accept credit cards, they will start to offer discounts for paying in bitcoin, which will eventually lead to B2B transactions in bitcoin

[hvezdasmrti]

Its very simple.

Consumers dont adopt BTC because they dont get any.

Is your paltry salary or another earnings paid in BTC? No ways.
Do you sell your used car for BTC? No ways.

You can pay with bitcoin. Yep, but you

CANT BE PAID IN BITCOIN.

No bitcash, no payments, easy. Nothing comes into existence from nothing.

[BittBurger]

OP:

I appreciate your first post.   And this thread.  Its good to get everyone tackling the elephant in the room, head on.  It gets people talking.  And thinking.  And the entrepreneurs out there will come up with solutions.  My only response to your rant is this:  Incentive needs to be created.  Or Bitcoin needs to become part of the financial fabric.  From what I am seeing, major thinkers and players are doing just that.  Major companies, powerful people, and some of the very smartest are gathering and putting their minds together.   This is something entirely new.  And your expectations (everyones expectations) for consumer adoption, are premature.  We aren't there yet.  We will be.  Eventually.  And how do I know that?   Because I see the foundations being built right now.  

You can have any opinion you want of Bitcoin.  You can't deny the statistics and facts, that the infrastructure is growing at a rapid pace.  And that is all that's necessary for Bitcoin to become part of the financial fabric of society.  Nobody knows how it will pan out.  How it will develop.  Nobody knows just what catalysts will come that will be the true turning point.  But that's all being tried and tested.  Its just beginning.  What business model will be the killer app?  What social/government/economic environment will kickstart its adoption?  

Could we have predicted that every Barnes and Noble would go out of business, when the internet first appeared, and in fact had been around for 10 years by 1996?  For fuck sake, Amazon.com didn't even have a web site until 1999.   How long after internets inception was that?  Now look at Amazon.  Look at Barnes and Noble.  How many years was Amazon around before Barnes and Noble finally started struggling to stay afloat?  How long was the internet around before Blockbuster started closing its doors?  

Here we are at a pithy 5 years and we're screaming the doom of Bitcoin because worldwide consumer adoption hasn't begun?  In 1996 nobody had a fucking incentive to shop online either.  You easily could have stood there, 10 years after internet's inception and said "Fuck this.  We're 10 years in, and people are still shopping in stores".  I think you get my point.  You're right.   Consumers have NO incentive to use Bitcoin.   The reason why?  Because the infrastructure hasn't been built for Consumer use yet.  But its going to be.  And you can feel confident in that by simply paying attention to whats going on in the industry.   Listening to the Podcasts.  Reading the Google News Feed for keyword Bitcoin.  Subscribing to the Subreddit.  There is so much shit going down right now Its nearly impossible to keep track of it all.  Businesses are being started.  Great minds are thinking.  Effort and money and time is being poured into this.  And that's what results in success.

I hope you were able to read all of that and fully digest it.  Apologies for the length.

-B-

[malumeze86]

OP:

I appreciate your first post.   And this thread.  Its good to get everyone tackling the elephant in the room, head on.  It gets people talking.  And thinking.  And the entrepreneurs out there will come up with solutions.  My only response to your rant is this:  Incentive needs to be created. Or Bitcoin needs to become part of the financial fabric.  From what I am seeing, major thinkers and players are doing just that.  Major companies, powerful people, and some of the very smartest are gathering and putting their minds together.   This is something entirely new.  And your expectations (everyones expectations) for consumer adoption, are premature.  We aren't there yet.  We will be.  Eventually.  And how do I know that?   Because I see the foundations being built right now.  

You can have any opinion you want of Bitcoin.  You can't deny the statistics and facts, that the infrastructure is growing at a rapid pace.  And that is all that's necessary for Bitcoin to become part of the financial fabric of society.  Nobody knows how it will pan out.  How it will develop.  Nobody knows just what catalysts will come that will be the true turning point.  But that's all being tried and tested.  Its just beginning.  What business model will be the killer app?  What social/government/economic environment will kickstart its adoption?  

Could we have predicted that every Barnes and Noble would go out of business, when the internet first appeared, and in fact had been around for 10 years by 1996? For fuck sake, Amazon.com didn't even have a web site until 1999.   How long after internets inception was that?  Now look at Amazon.  Look at Barnes and Noble.  How many years was Amazon around before Barnes and Noble finally started struggling to stay afloat?  How long was the internet around before Blockbuster started closing its doors?  

Here we are at a pithy 5 years and we're screaming the doom of Bitcoin because worldwide consumer adoption hasn't begun?  In 1996 nobody had a fucking incentive to shop online either.  You easily could have stood there, 10 years after internet's inception and said "Fuck this.  We're 10 years in, and people are still shopping in stores".  I think you get my point.  You're right.   Consumers have NO incentive to use Bitcoin.   The reason why?  Because the infrastructure hasn't been built for Consumer use yet.  But its going to be.  And you can feel confident in that by simply paying attention to whats going on in the industry.   Listening to the Podcasts.  Reading the Google News Feed for keyword Bitcoin.  Subscribing to the Subreddit.  There is so much shit going down right now Its nearly impossible to keep track of it all.  Businesses are being started.  Great minds are thinking.  Effort and money and time is being poured into this.  And that's what results in success.

I hope you were able to read all of that and fully digest it.  Apologies for the length.

-B-

This....  This right here is what will keep bitcoin alive....   :-)

EDIT: added smiley face.  :-)

[1anonymous]

The casino angle is the only thing offered thus far in this thread that could bring about large scale consumer adoption.

Big retailers mean zero to having consumers adopt to bitcoin.

Silk Road had people want to acquire btc, and if some busy on-line casinos came to be that are 100% bitcoin, then consumers will adopt it for that casino.

Drugs and casinos

I think major porn sites should say btc only since they all have problems with CC merchant accounts and often have to give away 20 points to even take CC's, so adult business could drive some to btc.

Porn
Gambling
Drugs

You get enough of that element and then you may see some people start to use it on major retailer sites, right now there's not enough people with btc and not enough sales percentage for anyone to see btc as anything but a fringe net wanna be currency and the report to congress by the think tank of congress said the exact same thing, no major consumer adoption to worry about in foreseeable future so there go a legit think tank saying btc is NOTHING TO WORRY about to congress.

Congressional Research Service is the thinktank that trashed bitcoin not long ago and since then it has nose dived, and they're the top minds in DC.

Get some big porn and casino sites using btc exclusively and it may get some consumer adoption.

[TorStory]

The OP asked for one legitimate reason for people using BTC...

Well i'm a landlord who rents rooms to students. I've started accepting BTC as for overseas students it is a lot of hassle getting a bank account up and running initially. They also can't send the deposit / first months rent from their own country as they'll get hammered in international transfer fees. Two have opted and successfully paid in BTC and by the time we'd finished our coffee the confirmation was there.

[chairoverflow]

volatility,not many shops with it,and not pretty easy to acquire

I want to add high difficulty level in mining.

[moriartybitcoin]

consumers will eventually smarten up .. but mainstream adoption is going to take time. It won't happen overnight. Some people will never adopt it. Hell, my grandpa still doesn't know how to turn on a laptop much less a smartphone ...

[moriartybitcoin]

Its very simple.

Consumers dont adopt BTC because they dont get any.

Is your paltry salary or another earnings paid in BTC? No ways.
Do you sell your used car for BTC? No ways.

You can pay with bitcoin. Yep, but you

CANT BE PAID IN BITCOIN.

No bitcash, no payments, easy. Nothing comes into existence from nothing.

I think this is a very good point!

[brian_23452]

Trolling or not the OP does raise some valid points about retail consumer adoption.

Currently they is no tangible benefit  for retail consumers to adopt bitcoin. Not cost benefit(bitcoin isn't really cheaper), time saving( transaction confirmation ) time nor is it hassle free( still not quite user friendly).

This ^.

For ordinary, every day transactions, there is obviously a benefit to the merchant, and no real downside (since they typically don't actually get exposed to bitcoin even if they accept it).  For a consumer though, there is no benefit, and a number of downsides, so why do it?

No, Not this ^.
It may not be user friendly yet, but it is the fastest, cheapest, and safest way to buy online. You may think that your credit card is faster and cheaper, but it is not. It takes 2-5 days to process that transaction and determine if the sale was legit. The seller does not receive money until this happens. Once it does the seller pays fees of about 3%, which is passed on to you. And that may be the tip of the fee iceburg. You may pay all manor of fees, hidden or not.
Thinking a card is free is like believing your getting a "free phone" with your cellular service. You will actually be buying that phone at full price over and over again.  
lastly, it has become unsafe to use credit cards. I am replacing my debit card for the second time this year due to data breaches. I have no idea who now has my banking information. With bitcoin I can post my overstock.com password and account name without worry. Since there is no card info and no route back to my bitcoins, the best an attacker could do is see my earlier purchases.

For me these reasons are compelling enough that I no longer use anything except bitcoin online.

The price exploded down actually. And some weeks later went up to $1000.

It may have taken a few weeks. But I helped someone to buy $100K worth just after the closing of SR. They did not want to own any while the darknet stuff was in the news. I know a lot of people were glad to see it go.

This isn't true at all.  As a consumer, you purchase a product online from I dunno, Amazon.com.  It takes 2-5 business days to process.  So what do you care?  They ship it right away.  Benefits the merchant to get it done right away, but makes no difference to the consumer.   The merchant pays a 3 percent fee.  Notice that the price you paid as a consumer was exactly the same regardless of your method of payment?  They eat that cost (or more appropriately, they surcharge on everything regardless of how they pay since card agreements prohibit them from charging card users more).  So yea this benefits the merchant too.  But not the consumer who pays the same amount regardless.  You mentioned hacking.  Lost bitcoins to hacking?  Too bad, they're gone forever.  Lost credit card money to hacking?  No problem, that's the bank's problem.  You say it is unsafe to use credit cards.  And I guess it is, in the sense that the merchant could lose your personal information.  They will have the same personal information if you are paying by bitcoin though (they still have to know who you are and where you live to send it to you!).  And of course, the worst feature as far as the consumer is concerned.  What if you don't get it or there is a problem?  If the merchant isn't agreeable, you're screwed.  With a credit card, you're not. 
So as I said yes there are a lot of benefits to the merchant (which is exactly who Satoshi had in mind when he designed it, if you read his white paper).  For the consumer?  Not so much. 

[sandykho47]

I ask few people why they don't want to adopting BTC, and this is their reason :
1. The price not stable at all 
2. It's just virtual
3. Nah, fiat still better 
4. People can steal my bitcoin easily 

I bet some people still think like that, that's the reason people won't adpot BTC 

It is not mainly for spending, but saving. Merchant acceptance is making a fundamental improvement for its usage (actually it only needs a couple of bitpay-like companies to achieve it), so that people can be more confident to save for the long term

Deflation   
I never see any fiat got deflation in a year

[Lethn]

I love how people are coming up with more visual ways to show you how much inflation affects everything.

[Ruthful]

Deflation   
I never see any fiat got deflation in a year

I think it does happened to quite a few countries.Japan had one not long ago( do they still have it?),I'm not sure if it symptom of the weak economy(It was during the Asian financial crisis) or one of the contributed to that state, all that I know was it was considered bad for the economy and the Japanese was quite alarmed by it( they were quite desperate to stop it).

[Lethn]

Deflation  
I never see any fiat got deflation in a year

I think it does happened to quite a few countries.Japan had one not long ago( do they still have it?),I'm not sure if it symptom of the weak economy(It was during the Asian financial crisis) or one of the contributed to that state, all that I know was it was considered bad for the economy and the Japanese was quite alarmed by it( they were quite desperate to stop it).

Japan is supposedly in a state of deflation right now and there have been many comments by mainstream economists and the Bank of Japan screaming about how horrible of a thing it is while of course failing to mention that it was their inflation that caused the problem of ridiculously high prices in the first place.

[Ruthful]

Japan is supposedly in a state of deflation right now and there have been many comments by mainstream economists and the Bank of Japan screaming about how horrible of a thing it is while of course failing to mention that it was their inflation that caused the problem in the first place.

Deflation in an economy that is designed optimally for inflation can wreak havoc on said economy.I think they were troubled by how it was negatively affecting consumer spending, productivity, putting pressure on wages(question of lowering wages to cope is a tinderbox of its own)etc.They blame this as one of the reasons  for  the erosion of Japan's economic power ( and global competitiveness).

[cbeast]

Why consumers are not adopting BTC? Why is the middle class gone? Same answer: ignorance and apathy. The West embraced willful ignorance and got fat.