the average joe
The average joe, if they've ever heard of Bitcoin, have no idea what it is or how to use it.
The average joe don't buy drugs on SR either. The number of computer geeks in the world outnumber the number of SR users many times, and how many computer illiterates know about SR at all?
Anyone who reads rolling stone regularly would have heard of silk road. Gavin Andresen is quoted in that article.
When the gawker article came out in 2011, a lot of news aggregators linked to it with the same headline.....
"The underground website where you can buy any drug imaginable" or a more recent headline "Amazon.com for illegal drugs"
http://gawker.com/5805928/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imaginablehttp://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/amazon-com-for-illegal-drugs/And there is word-of-mouth to spread the word.. which is part of the core culture of drug use. Help a brutha out.
How does the average joe participate? Through eBay sales. Joe isn't going to go through the trouble of signing up for an MtGox account. He's willing to pay as much as 50% over value to get bitcoins on ebay. The going rate is 30% over value. Of all the coins I have sold on eBay, the buyers are either holding on to them long term or they head directly to tumblers.
Based on sales and comments by buyers, I also assume that a group of people work through a tech savvy friend and coordinate/combine purchases. Also a core part of the drug culture.
Nothing new really except the guy who knows a guy is buying online and the price is a little higher but the options are greater. The casual user is you, your next door neighbor, your boss, your mom. If nothing else... Silk Road is a safer alternative than buying off the street.