Quote from: turvarya on July 08, 2015, 07:09:50 AM

Quote from: QuestionAuthority on July 07, 2015, 11:14:21 PM

Quote from: Keyser Soze on July 07, 2015, 09:53:45 PM

Quote from: QuestionAuthority on July 07, 2015, 08:12:33 PM

I have a checking account with $100 in it. I go to a Starbucks and charge a $6 cup of coffee. I now have $94 in my checking account and Starbucks has $6. There is no fee for either. I don't care if that cup of coffee costs the bank a million fucking dollars. The customer doesn't pay and the business doesn't pay. That's all the public will see or care about. If that cup of coffee costs one penny more they will keep using their debit card. Remember I'm not talking about credit. Credit is another story and something Bitcoin isn't currently competing with on a large scale.

Edit: I'm talking about Pin Debit using qualified large merchants.

Hmm.. I wasn't aware that there are merchant service providers who have zero fees for pin based debit card transactions. According to the FRB, fees for debit card transactions averaged $0.31 in 2014.

Large merchants like Starbucks bank where the tiered pricing is negligible or free. In the case of tiered pricing a business does not pay interchange fees. Instead, a business pays qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified rates to a processor. Smaller merchants pay larger fees. Different types of businesses pay different rates also. The point remains that consumers won't pay anything because they don't currently have to. I am such a cheap bastard that I buy gas at ARCO with only cash because they charge more for any card. I refuse to give those blood sucking leeches one penny more than I have to for gas.

Bitcoin has a strong ability to compete with the international money transfer business even if the fee was two dollars. I see no reason why it should be used for everyday purchases where the competition will win. I can pay cash for little stuff under $20. Sending $10k to another country I would want to use Bitcoin and so would anyone else.

Sorry, I am a bit tired, so I am not sure, if I really got that. So, Starbucks is paying a fee, the customer doesn't see?
If so, there is really a simple solution to that: A discount.
When the merchants saves fees, when you use Bitcoin, he can give you part of it back as a discount and if you get a discount, that is bigger than the fee you are paying for sending Bitcoin, you have enough incentive to do so.

You could use Dharma Merchant Services even as a small business and pay almost nothing for debit and credit card processing. That's not my point.

If Bitcoin is going to succeed in all markets, and I don't think it should even try, it needs to have different fee schedules for different markets. Invariably, depending on the market sector, Bitcoin will be too expensive or too cheap.

Take Amazon Payments as an example: With Amazon Payments, users can send and receive up to $1,000 each calendar month using a credit card without being charged any fees, creating the opportunity to earn credit card points for expenses that might otherwise be paid in cash or by check. How in the fuck is Bitcoin ever supposed to compete with that unless it's also free to use?

However, it costs between $15 and $50 to send money internationally. Why should Bitcoin only be a penny or a nickel. That's too cheap. Why can't Bitcoin cost $.50 or $1 for that transfer?

The only solution is to have a reasonably cheap transaction fee to pay miners or have large Bitcoin corporations do all of the mining for free because it supports their Bitcoin business. I know that will cause all the centralization arguments but it really wouldn't be any more centralized than a half dozen Chinese mining farms doing it.

Edit: Remember, we're talking about normal people using it, not a bunch of libertarian nut jobbers that would use Bitcoin if it cost $50 to send $1.