The issue is bitcoin doesn't solve an existing problem. Bitcoin evangelicals are marketing it as a solution to a non-existent problem. It's not like Amazon is having problem with people buying its stuff where the inclusion of bitcoin would be a solution. If you have a credit card it's idiot proof buying from amazon, but obtaining a bitcoin is harder than getting a credit card.
$1000 bitcoin
- Thread starter schockergd
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The issue is bitcoin doesn't solve an existing problem. Bitcoin evangelicals are marketing it as a solution to a non-existent problem. It's not like Amazon is having problem with people buying its stuff where the inclusion of bitcoin would be a solution. If you have a credit card it's idiot proof buying from amazon, but obtaining a bitcoin is harder than getting a credit card.
Is that right? Please enlighten us.
Which problem are you referring to? There are like 10+ different flavors of bitcoin evangelical these days, all excited by totally different problems that bitcoin solves for them.
Making more money is not a solution to anything? Go soak your head.
Not only would they save money on the lack of chargebacks, but the credit card & paypal fees themselves would be non-existent. That's probably more money in a day than you'll ever see in your lifetime.
I bet they lose a lot of money fighting privacy/theft concerns too. Doesn't happen at all with bitcoin.
Just for now. Report back to us all in one year about that.
I hear you talking, but this is what I heard you saying:
Bitcoin's volatility (by percentage) has almost always trended downwards.
This article's a year old, but it will point out well what's going on with volatility and why things are looking up for the next couple of years:
Use Leverage? Bitcoin Trading Volatility Beats Forex: Part 2
The absence of any consumer protection is a hindrance to bitcoin's adoption. Should Bitcoin become a mainstream currency the federal government will grow because there will have to be an entire agency devoted to dealing with the inevitable proliferation of bitcoin fraud/stolen wallets, etc. Fraudulent chargebacks are problematic, but using bitcoin as a solution is like cutting off the nose to spite the face.
Bitcoin is the equivalent of cash. Any third party payment structures built on top of the bitcoin technology would be the equivalent of credit cards. You're messing up the analogy.
People also seem to overestimate the mainstream public's prioritization of "consumer protection." The majority of them don't pick and choose cards based on the ease of opening disputes (as evidenced by the fact that Amex does not have a 100% market share). Most of them just want a little piece of plastic that lets them buy shit, and they completely disregard everything else.
Anyway, when you have a bitcoin-accepting merchant selling a product for 25% less than a cc-accepting merchant, who do you think will win out in the end?
It solves a massive problem. For example, let's say I have a friend in Ghana with a hungry goat, and I want to send $50 to help feed the thing. Currently, I need to register with say PayPal, provide full contact info, two pieces of photo ID, utility bill, credit card, bank account, and phone #, all of which need to be verified. My friend in Ghana has to do the same to accept the money.
Once that's out of the way, I have to fund my PayPal account, then send her the $50. Since it's from Thailand -> Ghana though, it'll probably get marked as fraud. So now I have to spend 90 mins of my morning on the phone with PayPal customer support trying to convince them it's actually my $50, and I do actually want to give it to my friend, with hopes they don't freeze the funds for 180 days.
On top of this, I have to pay like 3% or whatever it is for the privilege. Christ, all I want to do is give a goat in Ghana a nice dinner. With bitcoin though, virtually all of that shit disappears.
As a merchant I cant let this comment go. Those accepting bitcoin are not going to give up 25% when even the highest Credit Card fee is < 5%. With that said, there's still plenty of good reasons for a merchant to want to take bitcoin
It's not much easier for a first time bitcoin buyer (at least in the US) that does not want to leave his house.
If you want to send Gahna his $50 through coinbase you will have to
verify your email
verify your phone
verify your name
verify your address
add a bank account and verify 2 small deposits. If you dont want to wait a couple days you can simply give coinbase your bank accounts login credentials
Ready to send Gahna his Bitcoins yet? Nope now you have to verify a Visa card (only visa for the time being) by verifying another 2 small deposits.
Now your are finally ready to send gahna his bitcoin. Oh snap those mother fuckers will only allow you to send .10 bitcoins instantly, thank god he only wanted $50.
Bitcoin solves the problem, but .gov interference is already hindering that solution.
Where do you get the 25% figure from? Most merchant accounts add around 2-3% to the cost, nowhere close to 25%. So then people have to decide if the 2% savings is enough to forgo all of the old habits they have, the impediments to even obtaining bitcoin, and the lack of consumer protection. Sounds like we're asking a lot to save 2% in merchant fees.
Consumers won't be making the decisions. Did consumers choose PayPal? No, merchants did, and consumers went along with their decision.
For merchants, there's a hell of an upside. The CEO of Overstock put it best -- they operate on a 1% margin, so if they can decrease payment processing costs by say 1.2%, that's pretty appealing to them. More than double their revenue by accepting bitcoin?
Then as "buy now with bitcoin" buttons begin appearing everywhere, it will gain adoption with your standard soccer mom, same as PayPal did. Right now, it's just a process of waiting it out to see what every government / bank stance on it is, so the volatility can stop. From there, it'll stabilize, and (I'm hoping) become a mainstream payment medium we all use.
The latter troll is just as bad IMHO as the former troll.
Both of you, along with everyone else who doesn't already feel they are fully aware of how Bitcoin works, needs to read this quick ELI5 on it asap:
https://medium.com/future-of-currency/73b4257ac833
25% is a tad bit of a stretch, but there is a lot of sentiment floating around the bitcoinosphere from the bitcoin foundation, a bunch of top merchants, and from speakers at bitcoin conventions that says we should always try to offer discounts for bitcoin against fiat because our currency is deflationary.
I know this doesn't convince everyone and human greed is going to do what it's going to do, but there is a very sound, austrian economic argument for this and I've actually seen quite a few vendors offer an extra 10%-15% off in btc versus fiat.
On my upcoming project I won't accept fiat of any kind... So right now I'm struggling with the problem of how to show that I'm offering a discount without showing what I WOULD have charged them had they paid via paypal...
I know I know, 1st world problems... :conehead:
That's factually incorrect. Merchants have "chosen" a lot of alternate payment methods, the ones that stick are the ones that consumers find convenient. You can put all the payment buttons you want on your website, people aren't going to just sign up for new shit because you want them to.
Paypal took off because consumers on eBay found it to be the most convenient form of payment online. So much so that eBay was forced to ditch their own native online payment program and eventually bought Paypal since the consumers had chosen to use Paypal over the native eBay payment system. I used to sell on eBay back then and got a shit ton of emails from customers asking if I accepted Paypal until I eventually had to switch over, so I remember it well.
But that's not a business decision, that's an evangelical move by someone taking a loss in order to push something they believe in. Nothing wrong with that, but you'll never get a non-evangelical merchant to take a 15% loss on a payment form.
Luke - I actually had faith in what you said about bitcoin from back last year when they were still pittance (by comparison to now). I can't thank you for enough for introducing me to them at that point - I seriously can't.
However - if you ever ever ever use the term "bitcoinosphere" again, I will use all those coins to pay someone to hunt you down, skin you alive and feed you to... er... I don't know, something that takes a long time to painfully kill someone with.
Or something like that.
Get me Bro?
legal disclaimer: The above scenario is entirely a joke. 100% of it. Nothing more than friendly banter.
However - if you ever ever ever use the term "bitcoinosphere" again, I will use all those coins to pay someone to hunt you down, skin you alive and feed you to... er... I don't know, something that takes a long time to painfully kill someone with.
Or something like that.
Get me Bro?
legal disclaimer: The above scenario is entirely a joke. 100% of it. Nothing more than friendly banter.
There is a difference; It's not pure evangelism when the economic argument shows that your deflationary money is worth more than the dollar equivalent now, and through your action will grow to be worth even more than that in the future.
It does take some faith that prices generally go up, but bitcoin's earned that with 1000%-6000% earnings every single year.
