mass adoption for north america won't happen until security against scams are covered for consumers.  Right now if you send someone a payment with bitcoin there is no recourse (legal or otherwise) to get your money back if you don't receive what is promised.  If someone hacks your account and buys things you aren't protected either.

I don't know how it is in Europe but in Canada and the US we have many established, bank backed, and well-ingrained payment systems for consumers. (credit cards and paypal)

With my mastercard I get extended warranty and extra coverages, it's accepted everywhere (anyone that would even think of accepting bitcoin would also accept MC), if my card is lost or stolen and someone maxes it out MC will refund me everything, and, best of all, if someone doesn't provide me with the service we agreed on then I request a chargeback and MC takes the money back from them.

Paypal is just as good as Visa and MC and none of them charge me as a consumer a fee.

What does bitcoin offer?

Until bitcoin can offer consumers a service that's on par with the already easy-to-use and trusted payment services then it will always just remain a toy.  Something for people to play around with and talk about on the internet.

And don't waste time talking about escrow.  Both consumers and merchants want an instant transaction so escrow is useless for day-to-day transactions.


Take for example my first bitcoin experience.  I tried to purchase a router from tigerdirect.ca (a merchant that's been accepting bitcoin for a while now).

I made a payment but it was only a partial payment.  The order got locked in the system and I couldn't access it to pay the balance.  I immediately called cx service, they told me to wait till monday to have the order populate in their system.  Monday came, cx service couldn't access the order.  I was told to email cx support to request a refund.  Well the issue has been escalated several times now and still no refund.  Just today I had to make another 2 calls and sent yet another email requesting a refund. Fingers crossed that this will be the one that gets to the right place.  As it stands it has been over 3 weeks and I still haven't gotten the issue resolved.  What scares me is that if Tigerdirect just sent me an email that simply said, "suck it, you're not getting a refund." there would be absolutely nothing I could do.

TL:DR

Bitcoin has no protection for consumers.  MC, VISA, paypal already offer a simple, trusted, and protected service that cost consumers nothing to use.  There is no value that bitcoin brings to that market.