Oh well. I've been saying this for years, and it's as difficult as ever to deal with Bitcoin...I'm trying to pull some fiat out now which is a nightmare...and putting me in a bad mood.
Why? I've been doing the majority of my bitcoin transactions on my android phone for well over a year now. The times that I have to type in the addresses (as opposed to just using the camera as a scanner) is somewhat annoying, but I'm confident some kind of standard will emerge there as well, in time. It's certainly no more difficult to type in an address string to buy something online at some new to me website than it is to buy something online using bitcoin; and that's also bound to get easier once browser linked wallet clients become trustworthy. I've been on commerce sites that buying with bitcoin was almost, but not quite "one click simple". I've scanned QR codes right off my monitor, and never even fired up my destop bitcoin client. In fact, my desktop client is hardly even used at all, these days. I'd be just as well to move those funds into cold storage. I'll admit that I still do the majority of my online buying using other methods than bitcoin, but that's likely to shift significantly if Amazon ever develops a payment method compatible with bitcoin.
This is the boilerplate logic on this forum:
"I have no problem with bitcoin transactions, therefore bitcoin is easy to use." Since innuendo fails so often here, i'll spell it out:
1. You've been using bitcoin for at least since you've joined this forum, i.e. 3 years. No wonder you've learned to use it. Using yourself as a yardstick is ludicrous.
You have a point here, but I was talking about your claim that using bitcoins in commerce online has not become any easier. My own experiences notwithstanding, it's provablely easier for a layman to use bitcoin today than it was when I joined this forum.
2. You continue using fiat for 99% of your transactions, that's why you don't see the pitfalls of bitcoin.
Closer to 80%.
If you were forced to deal exclusively in bitcoin, you'd change your mind mighty quick.
I doubt it. I value bitcoin for what it makes possible, not for what it makes easy. It's the job of vendors to make bying from them easy.
3. If Amazon developed a payment system relying on Unicorn Puss [UPC], UPC transactions would be quick & simple also. It didn't, so they're not.
Sure, but Unicorn Piss doesn't have any trade value, nor does it have a decent security model that would lead to it ever haveing a trade value. Bitcoin does, and you know that. While it's possible that Bitcoin could still fall flat on it's face and never amount to anything, it has the potential for great things. Moreso now that a US federal judge has declared that Bitcoin is, indeed, money just last week. Now the Senate financial oversite committiee is rushing to get information from their usual suspects about how to 'regulate' bitcoin, an implicit admission that bitcoin isn't going to go away anytime soon. Also, that pirate40 is likely to spend quite a while as roomies with Bernie Madoff. I hcan honestly say that I, personally, was never a big enough sucker to be taken by his scheme.
4. The commerce sites you've been to, where bitcoin transactions are "one click simple," were likely to be SR, SD, exchanges or scams, if statistics teach us anything. When Shaniqua sells you a burger for bitcoin, i'll pick up my ears. Till that happy day...
The main site that I had in mind whaen I wrote that was this one...
http://muslimagorist.com/marketplaceIs it a scam? Not to me, I got what I ordered. Nor do I even know what a Shaniqua is. I'll be the first to admit that Bitcoin really won't have arrived until I can buy stuff from walmart.com and have it shipped site-to-store, or buy more bitcoins at the customerservice desk, andI actually have said this in the past. However, I think that day will come in some fashion or another. In my home city, there is now a points based foodie network for buying foodstuffs at 'participating' resturants. There are now over 50 such resturants in this network. While they don't use bicoin for this, it'd be trivial to do so, or establish a bitcoin to foodie points exchange. The old business models are dying, new ones are emerging. I have always had the talent to foresee the near future of these kinds of things, and it has profited me well. I'm far from the only one with this talent on this forum, and that is why we favor Bitcoin so much. Again, not for what it does do now, or makes easy now; but for what it makes posssible later. However, Crumbs, I do say we needs bears like yourself to keep us all in check. You provide a valuable service with your presence here.