But there is still the problem with malware. Sure, fiat has it too, and it happens often. But with fiat these problems are reversible, with Bitcoin unfortunately they are not.
The non reversibility of Bitcoin also prevents theft as well.
What about con artists stealing from small businesses by requesting charge backs?
What about banks freezing your assets while they investigate?
What about governments seizing your assets for legal reasons or under asset seizures ?
Isn't one of the reasons why traditional bank fees much higher than bitcoin because theft is merely socialized and recouped across all participants and all theft indirectly affects all users?
I appreciate your passion and I understand that it is a sensitive subject. I'd rather keep the tone neutral and a rational discussion.
I apologize for coming off rash but my reaction was prompted after reviewing some of your post history and seeing multiple negative posts criticizing bitcoin. I take it that you are just cynical and extremely skeptical which is fine but some of us get tired of hearing the same myths propagate repeatedly. It is sometimes difficult to identify the detractors with an agenda from those offering healthy criticism.
The problem I see with escrow is that it must be trusted by both parties. These entities (trusted by many people) will be scarce and thus they can impose high fees. In addition, these trusted entities can always side with the buyer (for example) if they chose to. Is it the same as Paypal? Isn't it centralization? Theoretically you can use whatever payment gateway you can find, but the trusted ones are few (Paypal and few others).
Escrow in Bitcoin is actually very inexpensive.. Multisig allows escrow to be free in most cases and only if there is a dispute there is a fee which is less expensive. Because Multisig removes counter party trust there is 0 risk that the arbitrator can independently steal the funds and thus allows for many arbitrators to compete driving down prices further. In fact anyone can become an arbitrator.
Here is one example of a marketplace of arbitrators for multisig escrow: https://www.bitrated.com
Crackers attack the fiat system all the time. And they succeed. And you call the bank and have your money back. With Bitcoin you call the Waaaahmbulance (I liked that picture!).
When someone steals my credit card, I am responsible for a 50 dollar deductible and all of the loss eventually comes back to hurt me and the rest of society. Merchant fees of 3-8% raise the prices of all goods and services. You don't get your money back,
the loss is just abstracted and amortized. In the future with hardware wallets bitcoin will become much more secure as well.
My point is that I'd rather trust an established system with accountability and traceability than an anonymous mining pool without accountability to make them self-control.
My point is the banks and governments have already betrayed the public's trust repeatedly and are not accountable.
They are corrupt and incompetent and should not be trusted. Decentralized mining pools have a much better track record.
I would personally rather deal with a hypothetical risk than a definite bad actor.
Yes, I see your point. But again, the fact that you can extort with fiat doesn't mean we should use a currency with which extorsion can be easier.
Extortion isn't just easier with Fiat but a central part of its design. Extortion and theft is an intrinsic property of Fiat and happens continuously.