Not long before I heard about bitcoins, I was participating much more actively in another online forum and consider many of the active members there friends even though we haven't met in person. At one point, one forum member fell on some hard times and the rest of us decided to donate what we could to help him and his family. Much like this one, our little online community was spread all around the globe, so funds were sent to my PayPal account and I purchased the item our friend so desperately needed, including PayPal's fees as part of my contribution.

Now imagine if we had used bitcoins instead. Not only would it have been quicker and easier to collect donations from around the world, we wouldn't have had to send a significant portion of the donations to PayPal for the privilege of doing so!