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

seymour-locksmiths.co.uk

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

#31

Post by jondubois »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #4
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.

It's been a great store of value over the past 6 years. It has outperformed every major index and currency. If you had invested just $10K in Bitcoin in May 2013, by July 2013 you would have lost almost half of your money... But if you were smart and had held on to it, today you would have over $350K!

As Warren Buffet would say, you just have to buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying. You have to keep your eye on intrinsic value... and the other eye on the Lambo. Easy peasy.

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

#32

Post by zeroxfe »

mateuszf wrote: post #12

There is still a pretty good chance that with Lightning it will change, because of minimal transaction costs, speed and scalability.

Lightning does assuage those problems, but it exacerbates the bigger and more relevant problem, which is user experience.

It is still ridiculously hard for a layperson to acquire, secure, and transact with Bitcoin.

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

#33

Post by api »

spectramax wrote: post #8

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…

I don't think you are wrong, but in the case of Bitcoin I think a lack of user focus is a secondary problem. The primary problem is that Bitcoin's economics don't work.

If it becomes popular, its nominal value explodes due to deflationary effects. This makes it inconvenient to use for money and rewards speculation and Ponzi type behavior. This drives people away from using it as money and it crashes. Repeat.

Bitcoin was getting some adoption in 2016 and early 2017, but the late 2017 bubble led to many retailers dropping it due to price instability. The late 2017 Bitcoin bubble was actually a deflationary collapse of the currency. After it there were only speculators left holding bags and trying to gradually get out before other speculators realized it was time to get out. That's where we still are today.

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

#34

Post by wheelie_boy »

dnautics wrote: post #22
spectramax wrote: post #8

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…

Yet today, half the world with computer access uses Linux, directly. And the entire world uses it indirectly.

He's specifically talking about Linux on the Desktop, which is hovering around 2% market share ( http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/... )

It might be that bitcoin is similar to linux - used as a backbone, but not customer friendly enough to ever be used directly by customers. Like maybe banks use it to transfer large amounts of money between each other or something.

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

#35

Post by fyfy18 »

cal5k wrote: post #18
spectramax wrote: post #8

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…

I have a better analogy: Bitcoin has the same sort of issues as TCP/IP. It's weird that people are expected to interact with it on the protocol level. I think the term "cryptocurrency" is the "Big Data" of 2018. The term itself has been somewhat tarnished, but the underlying technology is super useful and will find its way into a lot of applications. And no, I don't mean "blockchain". I mean Bitcoin... it's rather ni…

Most of the issues with "international banking" are infact just issues with North American banks.

I can transfer large sums of money around Europe and it will arrive in few days at the very latest. Within the same country transfers mostly arrive the same day (often it's under 1 hour), and sometimes that happens internationally too. Oh and I don't need to pay anything for that.

A few years ago I was working in the Middle East, and before I moved back I transferred my savings from there (~€50k) back to Europe without any questions from either bank. I just did the transfer online, and it arrived in a few days.

Now I'm working for a US company, and it took them a few weeks to setup paying me with their bank. It usually takes at least a week from when they tell the bank to pay me, until I receive the money in my account - to a USD account also in the US.

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

#38

Post by api »

Cypher wrote: post #2

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

It's a terrible store of value. It requires a constant massive electricity expenditure to keep it up. Gold, property, etc. do not and are much better if you just want to park money in something other than a financial instrument.

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

#39

Post by CPLX »

cal5k wrote: post #18
spectramax wrote: post #8

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…

I have a better analogy: Bitcoin has the same sort of issues as TCP/IP. It's weird that people are expected to interact with it on the protocol level. I think the term "cryptocurrency" is the "Big Data" of 2018. The term itself has been somewhat tarnished, but the underlying technology is super useful and will find its way into a lot of applications. And no, I don't mean "blockchain". I mean Bitcoin... it's rather ni…

I have a better analogy. Bitoin has the same issues as Flooz. It’s a more complicated and convoluted solution to a nonexistent problem.

The only people who have problems with spending money the normal way that are serious enough to accept the horrible user experience and unreliability of bitcoin are those conducting illegal transactions or evading currency controls. The market has no reason to rise beyond that narrow use case despite mass speculation to the contrary.

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

#40

Post by root_axis »

spectramax wrote: post #8

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…

It's worse than that; there is no compelling reason to use it for the vast majority of people. It's a strictly worse experience in nearly all respects compared to centralized options except in the case of dark net commerce where it's the only option.
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