It's not who needs an easy way to send money, it comes down to who will TRUST it enough to send and RECEIVE money....who will take it seriously or not.
The great thing is you don't need to trust it, bitcoin isn't about trust. It is about a trustless system, please do more research.
Transactions always require trust. I am referring to its acceptability to a wider audience. I myself am fine with the system.
Please explain how transactions require trust, if your signing a transaction with your private key, then no one can change it and still allow it to be valid across all nodes.
It was a general point that all transactions require trust....that the item you are buying is what you think it is or, on the other side of the transaction, that you will be paid. You said "you don't need to trust it", so my point was that trust is always an issue when doing business. You seem to feel that there is no doubt or hesitancy out there for Bitcoin to overcome. My point is that the everyday person is skeptical and leery. Anything that new money can do to make it easier to trust is beneficial, even if it seems self evident to others. I think the culture of Bitcoin is a bit too dismissive from what I see and read, and telling people they don't need to trust seems to dismiss widespread and persistent tendencies, which limits its appeal.
We are talking about two different things. Your talking about in general a transaction, which obviously you need trust but that has nothing to do with bitcoin as a currency. That has to do with how you conduct business and which would be found on all currencies. I did a transaction thru amazon with dollars and got scammed. So this is not limited to bitcoin. But with bitcoin you can do easier types of escrow, which I do all the time. I have a reputation built up that I am trustworthy. So I am not seeing your point but I think your dismissing bitcoin a property that all currencies have.
You are wrong that I am dismissing Bitcoin. I accept it as an improvement. I agree that the need for trust in a transaction has nothing to do with Bitcoin. I thought you were asserting that when it comes to Bitcoin trust is not an issue, therefore I said it is always an issue and nothing about Bitcoin removes that issue.
I do not dismiss Bitcoin. I do believe, however, that it could be improved if its creation was based on something other than 'mining' it. Base it on something REAL. Again, I realize that this is even MORE true with our present system of just creating new money 'out of thin air'.
We could issue Bitcoins anytime someone can hold their breath for longer than 3 minutes. That's hard to do, too. (I recognize the value that 'mining' has to the Bitcoin system, but ONLY to the Bitcoin system.)
So, this is why I suspect that non-techie, non-rebel, mainstream type people will not take Bitcoin seriously enough to give it the chance I would like to see it have of displacing our current system.
This is why I suggested in another post that there is real merit in idea of using Capital as Money as presented in the book
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-As-Money-ebook/dp/B009AP9ZG6 by a professor who is proposing something new. I think CAM and Bitcoin should 'merge'.