When it comes to computers you got the big names creating the hardware and also the big names creating the software. It's all very centralized and "safe" for the consumer.
Windows = Very centralized, made by one of the "big names", you can't even look at the source code without signing a non-disclosure agreement (and even then, unless I'm mistaken, you can only see certain parts of it). There are more viruses for Windows than all other computer operating systems in the world combined.
Linux = Somewhat centralized in the sense that Linus does have the final say on what goes into the "official" kernel, but in practice it's much more decentralized than this. Linus is one man and must delegate a lot of that responsibility to other members of the developer community, additionally the source code is available for all to see and the maintainers of various Linux distributions can apply their own patches to the versions of the kernel that they release. When's the last time you heard of a Linux virus? What are the odds that that virus still works on a modern Linux kernel? That's right, while there have been a small number of Linux viruses, I don't know of a single one that will work on a modern Linux kernel. Android root exploits are a different story, but a lot of those come from modifications made to the kernel by Google and various phone manufacturers and wireless carriers. In other words, those vulnerabilities come not from the somewhat decentralized process of Linux development but from the centralized "big names" you praise so much in your post.
If you want to compare the two and decide which one is "safe" for consumers (not which one is convenient, which one is more popular, or which one is better for gaming) there can be no doubt in any reasonable person's mind that the less centralized approach wins.
People generally don't like to waste energy by re-learning how do something (like making payments). If something works, it works. I watched that clip from letterman where he interviewed Bill Gates and everyone laughed at his visions of the Internet. Well the difference with Bitcoin is that since it's not centralised and therefore can't be controlled by the goverment (neither directly or through companies), leading it to the masses will be much more difficult.
People generally don't like to waste energy by re-learning how to do something (like watching movies). If something works, it works. [snip irrelevant part]. Well the difference with BitTorrent is that since it's not centralized and therefore can't be controlled by the government (neither directly or through companies), leading it to the masses will be much more difficult. This
must be why everybody in the world buys DVDs, goes to the theater or buys their movies from a "legitimate" centralized download service and nobody has ever heard of BitTorrent... oh wait...
I find it very unlikely to wake up one day, turn on the TV (or something like it) and hear the mainstream media praising Bitcoin.
Why? Because:
1. Mainstream media is centralised (=can be controlled by the government).
That much is true.. so why, then, have there already been certain mainstream media outlets who have had good things to say about Bitcoin?
2. Mainstream media only has room for simple "truths"
"Mainstream media" and "truth" rarely belong in the same sentence, and more and more people these days are beginning to realize that.
This way the service itself (which took action) is not to blame but the actual user who did it.
If you can't blame the centralized service controlled by a big company for some vulnerability that allowed something bad or illegal to happen, surely you can't blame a decentralized protocol that isn't controlled by any single entity and has no concept of "right and wrong" other than mathematical proofs that the protocol is being followed.
If an exchange is hacked then you'll read "Bitcoin Hacked!".
Then it is up to us to educate the mainstream media about what Bitcoin is and how it works. Then, if they still choose to misrepresent the facts with sensationalist headlines like "Bitcoin Hacked!" it's up to us to educate the general public, whose trust in the mainstream media is already failing.
BTC service can in fact be misused with zero consequence.
Ask Charlie Shrem or Ross Ulbricht about how they misused BTC with zero consequence.
Bitcoin was hacked. See the simple logic going on here? No one's responsible.
There is no logic there, only a fallacy. If someone hacks your Facebook account, you don't say "The internet was hacked" simply because you use the TCP/IP protocol to connect with Facebook. Your argument, to me, mostly reads like "People are ignorant, so Bitcoin will never catch on" and this is the same argument people used ten years ago about the internet. This argument completely ignores the fact that as sentient living things, human beings have the ability to
learn about things they don't currently understand and find uses for those things that they might not have though of before they learned about them.
Edit: At first glance, the BitTorrent argument might not make sense because it compares purchasing with "pirating" or "stealing". However, when you consider the old saying "time is money" it costs me much less to go to Walmart and buy a movie out of the $5 DVD bin and even to rip that DVD to my laptop if I want to than it does (in terms of time spent) to find a good torrent of that same movie and wait for it to finish downloading. Still, people spend much more than $5 worth of their time using BitTorrent to download movies when there are much simpler and more centralized ways to get them.
