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Comment by no_one_ever | Hacker News Reader

Could you please further explain?

I think it's implying the argumentative state when currencies are brought up. There's a lot of emotions wrapped around all the nonsense of forks, the random thefts, and general new but somewhat difficult to understand technology.

For most people it doesn't serve a purpose outside of what they're reading (I own a few bitcoin that I mined back in 09, but I'm never really compelled to use them for anything due to headaches and fees trying to spend them).

I've never quite understood the argument that bitcoin are difficult to spend. I have bought things with them and it's so much easier than credit cards! You open a wallet app, point your phone at your computer and tap yes, done. Credit cards you have to (optionally) make sure the site won't steal your number, go get your physical wallet, fill out a rather long form (that sometimes throws an error and makes you fill it out again) and then occasionally call the issuer because they decided someone might have stolen your card and won't let the transaction go through because it's big.

Bitcoin has problems but spending UX for online transactions really isn't one of them.

None of your criticisms of credit cards seem valid.

> Credit cards you have to (optionally) make sure the site won't steal your number,

Nope. If it's stolen, you get issued a new card and all the old transactions are refunded.

> go get your physical wallet, fill out a rather long form

Browser integration makes it easy to fill out these forms. I don't use it, but I've seen people who do.

> and then occasionally call the issuer because they decided someone might have stolen your card and won't let the transaction go through because it's big.

In my experience card companies let the transaction go through even if it's big. Then they call you. Mine sends me a text saying "Was this you? Type 1 for yes" and that's the end of it. I like that. It's a good thing.

I guess the payment wouldn't go so smooth if the bitcoins are sitting in 8-year-old files. You'd have to add to your description the steps necessary to install that wallet app and import the private keys. Whatever happens when you "point your phone at your computer" (OCR?, QR code?) might also not be fully reliable, so add the hassle of troubleshooting that. I can see how someone might not bother with it, if they have no real need to.

Personally, I'm relatively sure I will never use bitcoin, because I pay my groceries with cash and my rent per wire transfer, and other than that I buy stuff off the internet maybe twice a year, so entering my credit card details isn't quite that annoying. I realize my spending habits are somewhat unusual, though.

Here's what I ran into the other day.

I go to a website and click a "Pay with Bitcoin" button and am taken to a page where I have to send X BTC to Y address. Ok, easy to copy and paste them, I've done this plenty of times in the past.

And then I see "don't pay directly from an exchange!" because they take longer to send transactions or don't pay enough in transaction fees or something. I used a regular local wallet for a time but have been using Coinbase as my wallet ever since, and now that won't work. I've normally been able to pay via Coinbase very easily. Let's just download the blockchain...

120 GB? Well, better grab an old external hard drive...

26 hours to sync, despite my 200 Mbps cable connection? I guess I'm not paying with Bitcoin today.

I can definitely see how paying with Bitcoin could be annoying to an average consumer nowadays.

HN used to be way (more) hostile towards Bitcoin.

I feel like a few years ago there was some issue with etherium and it was generally considered to be inferior to bitcoin, I can't remember what that issue was now though.

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