...compared to say u.s. dollar bills which you can hold in your hand or stuff in your mattress.
this is why bitcoins will not go mainstream because majority of human beings on this planet do not have access to a computer.
successful gold standards are things like toyota trucks, ak-47's, u.s. c-notes which thrive in places like afghanistan and africa.
I do not think that in reality our planet is as decadent as your words make it seem, because it is enough to know that most of the people of civilized nations have access to internet and cell phones, and that alone would be enough to integrate a large part of the population to the bitcoin ecosystem. If we continue with the analogy that you propose, the fact that only 60% of the inhabitants of my country have access to banking services has not meant the death of the banks.