Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers • Hacker News Board

Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#1

Post by tim333 » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers
seymour-locksmiths.co.uk

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#2

Post by Cypher » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:18 PM UTC

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#3

Post by godzillabrennus » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

Has your local currency been so awful at storing value that it lost more than 75% of its value in a little over a year?

In Venezuela you’re probably better offer with Bitcoin. If you live in a developed free market economy then probably not.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#4

Post by theandrewbailey » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

Bitcoin is terrible for storing value.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#5

Post by onomics » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

Why would you 'store value' in something that's so new and volatile? If you want something impractical that serves to store value, buy Gold.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#6

Post by acdha » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

The only value Bitcoin has is group consensus. If nobody has a need to use it, the values of otherwise-meaningless numbers will trend to zero.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#7

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

obvious sarcasm, people.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#8

Post by spectramax » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

Bitcoin has the same sort of issues that plague Linux Desktop and why Linux never took off as the defacto standard for PC OS.

It’s the lack of user focus. Setting up a bitcoin account, understanding the security implications, hardware wallet, secret keys, the whole enchilada is too big for an average consumer to digest.

Somewhere in Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson, there is a snippet about how products often fail when they’re designed by geeks, engineers and technology people - they make products to sell to customers that are like themselves. I’m an engineer myself and I also think the contrary is also true - products and services developed by “MBA” kinds often fail because the people in charge of the company roadmap have no fucking clue about the technical details and trade-offs of the product.

Bitcoin transaction process is designed for the most part for the nerds, not for the average Joe. I know there exists Coinbase and other “easy” setups for Bitcoin. But I’m talking about what happens when an average joe Googles “How to setup a bitcoin account”. Instant “nope” - I don’t have time for this shit and my personal money is at stake if I mess this up.

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#9

Post by lenticular » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

Cypher wrote: post #2

Well bitcoin is better for store of value, just use a CC for spending - more protection.

That's the latest line since transaction costs of bitcoin have become out of this world. But it's more volatile than any non tin-pot dictatorship currency. It's vulnerable to hacking, hardware failure, or fraud by exchanges. I swear every 2 weeks a hear about another $100 million vanishing.

How is this not just an utterly useless technology for anything except illegal transactions?

Re: Accepting Bitcoin as a Small Business – 4 Years In, No Customers

#10

Post by joshstrange » Fri, Mar 01, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

It's about time we admit the emperor has no clothes. BTC/ETH/XYY/123 can store value (I don't care to get into the fluctuations right now) and moving it around can be a lot easier than outdated systems like ACH but they are terrible for paying for things. Maybe something like the lightning network or similar will be able to solve part of that but accepting BTC has always been more of a fad/PR-move than an actual business decision.

Unless you are running in the gray/dark web (Silk Road-type, Torrent/nzb trackers, seedboxes, etc) your customers are not going to jump through the hoops required to spend BTC.