If you are switching to this because mining for Bitcoin is unprofitable, then you are only fooling yourself.
Scenario 1)
- You give $100 to the goat-needing families
Scenario 2)
- You mine 5 BTC for Coinbase, using $100 of electricity.
- Coinbase converts the BTC to USD.
- Coinbase sends $67.50 to the goat-needing families.
And no one sees the problem with this?
I guess people like this just because it's kinda novel and people like to feel they're helping directly. This goes the same for real world donations. Lots of people get excited about canned food drives when, in reality, it'd be much more economical and productive to just give straight up money to the donation center.