Quote from: Jalum on July 10, 2011, 04:47:03 PM

As an average adult in Western society, if someone tells me that something costs a dollar, I have the background knowledge about how I can attain a dollar, and the various means with which I can transmit that dollar to the other party.

Which has nothing much to do with how many steps you have to take to get that Dollar. Even though Bitcoin is pretty new, any teenager will know long before you ever heard of it if it's interesting to them in some way (because the other kids show up in school with it, they need it for some online thing or whatever). The same thing is true of many other new technologies that the current generation takes for granted. Their thumbs are apparently now the most developed because of SMS, while for older generations it was the index finger. How long does Facebook exist and how many people do you know who hasn't heard of it? You underestimate how fast something new can spread.

Quote from: Jalum

The average adult does not know what a bitcoin is.

The average adult does not know a whole lot of things. Most won't ever care, as long as they aren't hungry or homeless. Or their children tell them.

Quote from: Jalum

Please come up with a more concise list of steps that you would tell someone to ensure that they were able to turn their dollars into bitcoins into a WoW subscription.

Not gonna waste time on that since you have made up your mind anyway. You should just know that probably half your items are or will be superfluous soon. There are already sites taking out the steps for conversion and allowing you to pay directly in Bitcoin. If Blizzard ever supported Bitcoin I'm pretty sure some would specialize on making this a one-click process. I expect online wallets and Bitcoin clients with built in CC to BTC via exchange plugins or similar will be commonplace in the not too distant future.

Once you have Bitcoins, for every renewal you just grab your mobile and punch in the amount, select WoW from your bookmarks and you're done. Seconds later you are online. Android wallets already exist, FYI.

Quote from: Jalum

Step number 9 is because there is a prevention on moving money into/out of Dwolla or Mtgox on weekends, isn't there?

You're confusing the items on your own list, the above would be step 5. Step 9 takes seconds. As for step 5, last I heard people were using Dwolla because it's much faster than CC/banks. Maybe you should try another exchange? There are at least 2 professional alternatives now (Tradehill, Camp BX), more soon enough.

The steps involving Dwolla can be eliminated too BTW, you can wire to an exchange directly. AFAIK people use Dwolla because it's faster and/or they already have money in there, and possibly if wire transfers are more expensive from say Europe to a non-EU exchange.

Quote from: Jalum

Isn't that the justification for the price falling every weekend?

I don't think so, if you read other threads the whole weekend dip has been debunked to begin with. Proof: exchange rate didn't dip this weekend, it increased slightly (14.40 to 15.00 right now).

Quote from: Jalum

As a result, no serious merchant would agree to a price in bitcoins if they couldn't immediately convert those to dollars, which cannot be done on the weekend.

But they can. I don't know where you are getting your information, exchanges are 24/7, transfering Bitcoins in or out is a matter of seconds. Deposit/withdrawal of Dollars takes longer, but that is the exact same thing as any other USD only merchant, CC etc., the delay is on the bank end, nothing to do with the Bitcoin economy. Except the fees are lower for BTC. Also, there are already plugins for ecommerce suites (magento for example, 2 others I forget the name of) and merchants who have dynamic pricing and immediate conversion on an exchange, e.g. bitcoinworldmarket.com

Quote from: Jalum

Yes, the products you can buy with bitcoins are "similar" to those you can buy with USD. They just cost 400% more.

Sorry but that's just bullshit. Look up the merchant list on the wiki (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade) and see how many are charging the exact same or possibly less because of the lower fees.

BTW, I could guess the function of timecard from the context but wasn't familiar with the term (I would have called it prepaid card).