If bitcoin is ever to win in the p2p small transactions space, vs payment processing services moving around digital records of fiat currencies, then it will be because of any inherent advantages it has over those services - or at the root of it actually the advantages it has, at a low level, over moving around digital records of fiat currencies per-se, as most likely there would be just the same range of competing payment processing services built on top of bitcoin anyway.

It won't be because it gets marketing from the mainstream press. Perhaps it could help bring people into the ecosystem after a certain critical mass of users is reached, and using bitcoin regularly and getting real value out of it, but almost certainly it won't help before.

The appeal has to be intrinsic first and foremost, and the critical mass has to be built to and reached first before we start criticising mainstream media outlets for not mentioning it at every given opportunity. Why would they, when it's not yet (if it will ever be) something that's particularly relevant to most of their readership?

The internet was just the same in its very early days. Misunderstood and underestimated at best, actively mocked and trivialised at worst, by the mainstream media. But, clearly, it 'won' in an unimaginably massive sense of the word. Whether this pattern will repeat with bitcoin or not, is a matter of whether bitcoin can realise its lauded potential on paper in the real markets, but regardless I think we should expect there to be a similar pattern if it can. It won't be the opposite, marketed from the top down by the mainstream press and companies, I am pretty confident. But let's see how the next 5 years plays out.. it's going to be fascinating to find out what happens!

Makes sense, they aren't relevant to most people.