As hard as it might be to see, I really believe the crisis in front of us is one of perception as opposed to anything technical. Perceptions are manageable while the real work of sorting through the technical issues is taken out of the limelight.
The network is working and it's still relatively cheap (5cents pre TX)
But we have threads that are titled "
why is my TX not confirming ?? " or somthing to that effect
Newbies are using bitcoin for the first time and are having a hard time, with their BTC tie up seemly never to confrim, and they conclude that bitcoin is not all that it's cracked up to be....
is this a problem?
I remember when i was a newbie, i would check over and over waiting for the first 6 confirmations, everything went smoothly, but I didnt fully trust that it would go smoothly, i was afraid my money would get lost or somthing. slowly my confidence in the system grew as i used it more and understood it more.
not sure i would have be able to build any confidence had i started using bitcoin today....
adamstgBit, you've hit it right on the head. We must do everything we can to help folks adopt Bitcoin without pain/anxiety. Our marketing messages need to set expectations appropriately; gone are the days of leading with the misleading "no fees". It's ok to indicate lower fees than the competition, e.g. wire transfers, VISA, *if* it is indeed true but don't touch the topic if it is not -- if 5¢/transaction is the going fee then transactions less than say $5, i.e. 1%, make less sense. Instead lead with our indisputable strengths, e.g. ~1 hour (6 blocks) to guarantee transfers of even large amounts anywhere in the world. It is just unbelievable that there are wallets out there that don't set an appropriate fee automatically and by default such that transactions get through quickly despite the dynamic environment. Once a new user grows accustom then they could dig in and find the overrides to try transactions with low/zero fees and see the natural consequences of long delays.