Quote from: Asrael999 on October 24, 2014, 01:46:53 PM

Quote from: octaft on October 24, 2014, 01:14:15 PM

Please ignore the troll argument and focus on the legitimate one: if you use your credit card, you can name, shame, and still have your money at the end of it.

as more and larger companies adopt bitcoin they will focus on repeat business - not one time scams. Most large companies offer refunds for returned goods or store credits without any complaint. As the number of reputable merchants accepting bitcoin increases the number of "problematic refunds" as a percentage of total transactions will decline. Certainly the economic losses from these types of transactions will be far lower than the economic gains from the reduction in fraud. The volume of transactions involving a disreputable seller is much smaller than the volume of transactions involving a disreputable buyer.
A company I am involved with recently deactivated their credit card processor, they have found this has increased their business via bitcoin and with a corresponding decrease in fraud and time wasted wondering whether that payment/order is real or not this translates into increased efficiency. They are currently debating whether they take credit cards in the future or not, but the time savings are so great from not having to deal with the credit card processor I think they should not bother.

The fact that a company you worked for benefited from switching to bitcoin does not disprove my point that bitcoin is much more beneficial for the merchant than the consumer. I understand that most large companies offer refunds, and most will be legitimate about it and process them, but almost all of those companies will also accept a credit card, so, again, what is the benefit of bitcoin for the consumer over traditional methods?

What you're listing is a bunch of benefits for merchants. The problem is, the benefits to merchants are unimportant in the grand scheme of things, if no consumer thinks it's worth the trouble to buy with bitcoin, I guarantee you those merchants are not going to decline being paid in some other way. It's not the merchant who gets to decide whether to walk away, it's the consumer. If the merchant doesn't want to accept their credit card, they'll just go to the tons of other places that will.

So "problematic refunds" will decline relative to number of transactions over time. Even if I grant you that, they will still exist, and when those "problematic refunds" (aka ripoffs, let's call a spade a spade) do arise, the consumer will be much better protected if they don't use bitcoin. If bitcoin isn't much better than, and in some cases actively worse, than current options, why should consumers be willing to take the plunge and make the change?

tl;dr you don't have to convince the merchants, ultimately you have to convince the consumer.

Quote from: marcelus on October 24, 2014, 01:53:47 PM

If it benefits the merchant, prospective entrepreneurs will build infrastructure so that the consumer will find it beneficial to use. Simples.

I'll believe it when I see it, but yes, if there is a convincing way to sway consumers into using bitcoin, THAT'S what you really need. So why is the focus always on the benefits to merchants?

Quote from: cbeast on October 24, 2014, 02:09:52 PM

It still won't be exactly how Ayn Rand pictured it or even motivated the same way. There is a seed of merit in her claims, but it will take enormous resource management efficiency technology to make it work.

Not for nothing, but the last time the world listened to a crackpot author on issues that people take seriously, we got Scientology.