Quote from: xane on April 24, 2013, 08:25:23 PM

Quote from: ribuck on April 24, 2013, 07:22:29 PM

Quote from: basementdweller on April 24, 2013, 03:49:38 PM

I'm a passionate Paypal hater. My desire to see them fail is even greater than my desire to be rich.

So I'm not supportive. I hope they perish like the dinosaurs 60+ million years ago.

PayPal will introduce the masses to Bitcoin. Then, when Bitcoin becomes easy enough for the average Joe to use, those people will abandon PayPal for pure Bitcoin.

Then PayPal will wither away, and you will get your wish.

More like PayPal will introduce PayCoin, their own brand on top of the Bitcoin system. After they leverage the entire Bitcoin network for free, they will charge both sellers and buyers fees to send PayCoins through it's "secure" network. Since PayPal is already ubiquitous in NA and is required for sites like eBay, everyone will adopt PayCoin and not even know what a "Bitcoin" is. Then they will freeze your PayCoin balance any time you make a transaction they consider "too large". They will reverse payments to sellers because the item "didn't work" or "never arrived" even though you have delivery confirmation. You won't be allowed to use PayCoins to purchase any digital goods either, of course.

Sounds amazing.

Which would be an excellent opportunity for a small guy to show up with a no-bullshit alternative to PayPal for Bitcoin, which eventually, hopefully, would drive people away from PayPal and make it crash badly.

Their business is at stake, unlike with traditional money people can (or should be able to) easily move their BTCs to the next online wallet if they suck.

Also it shouldn't be that easy for them to pull a currency out of their asses and magically have it have value. Bitcoins are valuable because people decided they have value, but would PayPal succeed convincing the masses their paycoin is valuable aswell? They could try but I personally don't see it.