Playing devils advocate here.
It's been bothering me lately, thinking about this. Consumers have absolutely no motivation to use Bitcoin. And because of that, I don't understand how it will ever go global.
All the motivation is for merchants. They avoid merchant fees. They get no chargebacks. But they're also going to get no sales (aside from enthusiasts), because consumers have no incentive to use it, whatsoever.
Where are the perks for consumers, in a situation where they're buying something with bitcoin?
The only benefit Bitcoin brings to consumers, is money transfers. People who send money Home to their families in other countries. Bitcoin will corner the market that Western Union currently dominates. And probably put it out of business. While that is a huge industry, it's a fraction of how big Bitcoin could become if consumers used it for purchasing.
What incentive do consumers have to use Bitcoin at all? None. And because of that, it's never going to be adopted worldwide. Again, playing devils advocate here. I want to hear people's responses to this. Because in my mind, it seems to be true. And that is depressing.
You may say, it's just like cash, what motivation do people have to use cash. Or it adds a level of privacy. But these aren't significant enough benefits for a worldwide paradigm change. We're talking about adopting a new paradigm here. There needs to be incentive, for people to even bother making a huge change like this. Especially when it's more difficult than cash. More confusing than cash. More ugly than cash, requiring people to understand several decimal place fractions and other complicated things. So not only is there zero incentive to use it, but there are several reasons why they wouldn't.
There needs to be something huge, global, significant, about Bitcoin that will motivate people who buy things to say "Forget this silly cash! To the trash with my credit cards!"
Tell me why this is wrong. Pleas
Some arguments (certainly not all):
1) If BTC cuts some costs for merchants, it will for consumers too. In a competitive economy, either BTC businesses will be less expensive or BTC paid merchandise will be discounted.
2) I pay some indirect costs for having access to my traditional bank services, I cannot really send cash at a distance.
3) The value of a BTC is also a bet on the development of the ecology around the bitcoin protocol. For now what exists resembles traditional businesses. But what in the future? I am personally sure that, in the years to come, we will see flourish services that can only be proposed in BTC. Just as an tasty example, in a week, I invested in a BTC gambling site (in a currency different from the one in use in my country), made a profit and took my bitcoins (plus interest) back. I never saw that possible with money.