wordpress removes bitcoin payment option

[pooya87]

bitcoin tab for payment has now mysteriously vanished on WordPress, the web's most popular blogging system!





source:
http://www.coindesk.com/wordpress-removes-bitcoin-payment-option/

[Madness]

Outch , not a cool move from them to be honest ... 
And me who wanted to start WordPress blog soon

~ Madness

[Blazr]

I was recently thinking about using them to host a simple website. This is the second time a company has stopped accepting Bitcoin right before I'm about to buy their shit and I don't have a credit card, Bitcoin is the only way I can pay. Oh well, hopefully it's just a temporary thing.

[uvt9]

Some bitcoin-accepting companies have reported a lacklustre performance following the initial PR boost, with Overstock revising its sales figures from $10–$15m to $3m as purchases slowed in 2014.

Adoption is increasing they said, Cryptocurrency is revolutionary they said.

Everyone is hodling their precious coins, locking them in cold/paper wallets instead of spending them.

[CIYAM]

Quite likely they have simply have had so little business from it that they have decided it just isn't worth having.  Every extra "option" (be it payment or otherwise) is something that makes your website just that little more confusing to the masses so if it isn't bringing in any real extra profit then it would be sensible to remove it in order to keep your UI as simple as possible (why do you think credit cards have basically just been reduced to the two options over the years).

[Madness]

I was recently thinking about using them to host a simple website. This is the second time a company has stopped accepting Bitcoin right before I'm about to buy their shit and I don't have a credit card, Bitcoin is the only way I can pay. Oh well, hopefully it's just a temporary thing.

Yeah let's hope it's temporary thing .
By the way , what is this second copany that stopped using Bitcoin ? Wordpress is the first I heard off to be honest.

~ Madness

[Blazr]

I was recently thinking about using them to host a simple website. This is the second time a company has stopped accepting Bitcoin right before I'm about to buy their shit and I don't have a credit card, Bitcoin is the only way I can pay. Oh well, hopefully it's just a temporary thing.

Yeah let's hope it's temporary thing .
By the way , what is this second copany that stopped using Bitcoin ? Wordpress is the first I heard off to be honest.

~ Madness

Wikipedia was one. They removed Bitcoin as a donation option. I'm not sure if its back now or not.

The company I was thinking of was a small dedicated server company in Belgium that I wanted to rent a server off, they removed Bitcoin as an option after the first month of service, right as I was planning to upgrade the server to a more expensive one and use it for a production env.

[uvt9]

Wikipedia was one. They removed Bitcoin as a donation option. I'm not sure if its back now or not.

Wikipedia is still accepting Bitcoin donation, but we can't see this option in main donation page. To use Bitcoin, you need to click into the tiny link "Other ways to give" at the bottom of the page to this link: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give

[Abbey_j]

In the past, we always heard some companies accepted Bitcoin as payment option, but now, what we hear is they are removing Bitcoin!  

[CIYAM]

And again with Wikipedia it is simply not surprising - too many options don't look good and as probably only a very fraction of a percent of their donations would have come from Bitcoin there is no reason to have it cluttering up their main donation page.

The reason is that people over-hyped Bitcoin and haven't realised it is not very useful for payments at all (apart from transferring large sums of money between countries which is the one major area it actually hasn't even been commercially used for despite being most suitable for).

I recall back in 2012 (or maybe even late 2011) seeing Amir trying to say that it could be used for "micro-payments" with Gavin having to say "ahh - no" to that in the same interview (and of course it is totally useless for that purpose).

Also non-reversible payments might be a great thing for vendors but 99% of consumers are going to stick with reversible credit card payments (and don't see the costs anyway as they are generally hidden by the vendor).

It should also be noted that in China the credit card companies charge the vendors only 1% generally (much lower than in the US) so Bitcoin is *never* going to work as a payment system here (and they basically have pretty much irreversible payments via Alipay anyway).

[LiteCoinGuy]

sad move, i thought they are true believers  

credit card and paypal just suck! of course not alot of people pay with bitcoin BECAUSE there are LESS THAN 1 mio in the whole world who have some BTC !

[MUFC]

Have they given a reason why? Is it possible they just removed it temporarily?

Quite likely they have simply have had so little business from it that they have decided it just isn't worth having.  Every extra "option" (be it payment or otherwise) is something that makes your website just that little more confusing to the masses so if it isn't bringing in any real extra profit then it would be sensible to remove it in order to keep your UI as simple as possible (why do you think credit cards have basically just been reduced to the two options over the years).

I don't understand how having the option to pay in bitcoin will do them any harm. Sometimes when I pay for things I see plenty of methods to choose from which I've never heard of but usually just go for the PayPal option (uggh). I would love to pay with bitcoin but PP is the easiest thing currently but now people wont even have the option to pay in btc and will likely lose them business from bitcoiners.

[TrianglePythagoras]

This sucks, a lot of people are withdrawing from bitcoin.

[CIYAM]

I don't understand how having the option to pay in bitcoin will do them any harm. Sometimes when I pay for things I see plenty of methods to choose from which I've never heard of but usually just go for the PayPal option (uggh). I would love to pay with bitcoin but PP is the easiest thing currently but now people wont even have the option to pay in btc and will likely lose them business from bitcoiners.

It is simple psychology - if you have 100 options for a meal then the average person is going to take a longer longer to decide then if you have say 2 options.

Each second of indecision is likely to be a "lost sale" (i.e. moved on to another website).

[finnile]

I wonder what made them do this. Maybe pressure from other payment companies.

[finnile]

I don't understand how having the option to pay in bitcoin will do them any harm. Sometimes when I pay for things I see plenty of methods to choose from which I've never heard of but usually just go for the PayPal option (uggh). I would love to pay with bitcoin but PP is the easiest thing currently but now people wont even have the option to pay in btc and will likely lose them business from bitcoiners.

It is simple psychology - if you have 100 options for a meal then the average person is going to take a longer longer to decide then if you have say 2 options.

Each second of indecision is likely to be a "lost sale" (i.e. moved on to another website).

I doubt it means a lost sale. They don't have 100 options, but only about 4-5 . And if you see the option, that you would like to pay through , then thats one more extra sale.

[uvt9]

I don't understand how having the option to pay in bitcoin will do them any harm.

Merchants want to keep checkout page simple and focused as much as possible. Studies has shown that lots of sales was lost in checkout page. Unfortunately in this case Bitcoin tab is an unnecessary thing which can confuse customers. Amount of sales they get via Bitcoin is so few and not worth to keep.

Solution ? Everyone need to spend their coins so merchants can have a reason to keep this payment option. You can do both spending and hodling. Since buying BTC with credit card is pretty easy in US, you can buy on the Coinbase or Circle to compensate the amount of coins you're going to spend on something.

[acquafredda]

I don't understand how having the option to pay in bitcoin will do them any harm. Sometimes when I pay for things I see plenty of methods to choose from which I've never heard of but usually just go for the PayPal option (uggh). I would love to pay with bitcoin but PP is the easiest thing currently but now people wont even have the option to pay in btc and will likely lose them business from bitcoiners.

It is simple psychology - if you have 100 options for a meal then the average person is going to take a longer longer to decide then if you have say 2 options.

Each second of indecision is likely to be a "lost sale" (i.e. moved on to another website).

I don't like what you explained but, unfortunately, you are tremendously right.
No care for customers, just for their money.
And the day they'll start accepting BTC again on the platform they'll probably reply that they tried it first.

So sad

[ChuckBuck]

Bitcoin and Crypto in general is still a very experimental unproven currency and payment option.  I don't blame Wordpress if they just were testing the waters, to see if it were a viable payment method.  I'm sure sales were lacking, so they decided to pull the plug.

If and when Bitcoin reaches that point where it makes sense to add Bitcoin as a proper payment option, I'm sure you'll see it in their blog or it'll just reappear at checkout once again.

For now, we just have to wait patiently, and let Bitcoin grow.  'Tis still a little sprout.

[MUFC]

I wonder what made them do this. Maybe pressure from other payment companies.

Doubt it. Bitcoin isn't that much of a threat currently.

It is simple psychology - if you have 100 options for a meal then the average person is going to take a longer longer to decide then if you have say 2 options.

Each second of indecision is likely to be a "lost sale" (i.e. moved on to another website).

I doubt it means a lost sale. They don't have 100 options, but only about 4-5 . And if you see the option, that you would like to pay through , then thats one more extra sale.

Yeah. I don't understand this psychology either. Personally I like lots of options and the most popular ones were listed at the top with bitcoin at the bottom as they usually are on other sites too. Having the option there will have likely piqued peoples interest as to what bitcoin actually is so it's disappointing on that level too.