Ok how about this. How about instead of going around telling merchants to use Bitpay, we make a system that allows merchants to accept BTC, but automatically sells the BTC as soon as it is received via an exchanges API So the merchant can do the same thing as with bitpay: accept BTC and get fiat into their bank account, but instead of having Bitpay as a middleman it interacts direct with the exchanges via an API.

You have to remember that the merchant STILL has to integrate Bitpay. Integrating something like this is almost exactly the same as integrating Bitpay except this does not have the fee, extra unnecessary third party risk and (negative) the locked in exchange price.

Sure they have the risk of having to deal with an exchange, but this is much better than the risks when working through Bitpay/Coinbase. If the exchange gets hacked/scammed/poor managment they can temporarily hodl while they switch to another exchange. With Coinbase/Bitpay their entire bitcoin payment system can go offline.

Additionally it's up to the merchant what information they decide to share with third parties about their customers, so that will put a spanner in the works of the latest "attack" on Coinbase with the stringent AML requirements and data mining.

Whats the point of going slow when it isn't really a big step? Accepting BTC directly isn't some huge technical challenge like many would have you think.