This situation exists all the time with all asset classes, not just Bitcoin.
Buying a $5000 car for my parents in particular was a nightmare because they needed the money quickly and the banking options I was looking at were either too slow or had cash limits or had fees. So I just sent it in Bitcoin, they cashed it out the same day on Coinbase and it was smooth and easy.
Receiving money from my friend in Argentina is obviously difficult when they dont have a USD bank account, so we just use crypto.
My brother and I are both crypto enthusiasts and we are comfortable settling our debts in crypto because it's so easy and we both prefer to keep our assets in crypto than USD.
If you think these anecdotes are hard to believe, you need to broaden your horizon in life. I'm not even that weird a person.
Stories about use cases for crypto do sound unusually romantic or risky, but that's probably because sectors underserved by the banking system tend to be viewed as romantic or risky.
Me too! I haven't used crypto for that yet. But for small value transfers <$100, me and my friends have sometimes exchanged Amazon Gift Cards with each other.
Looking at your comment history, it does sound like you registered this user account just to jump on crypto discussions to pump it up.
Even if you're being totally honest with your highly peculiar and definitely uncommon personal anecdote, circumstances do drive down your credibility.
In short, I just really like the coins.
Many Canadian companies trade on both. Shopify is another that you may be more familiar with (though I don’t use that one).
You take some volatility risk over those few days, but on average, you save a lot on fees and make a bit of money over those days. Over enough transactions, even the volatility averages out.
When you’re converting 0-$100k at a bank, they charge you 1.5% - 3% (for lower amounts).
If you're trying to discuss aspects of the transaction then either you focus specifically on the crypto-to-crypto part of the transaction, or the fiat-to-fiat. The crypto-to-crypto part of the transaction is arguably fast but you are forced to address Bitcoin's volatility, which makes it unsuited as a store of value. The fiat-to-fiat aspect of the transaction on the other hand is arguably slower than simple bank transactions, and often with higher cost.
Every crypto proponent is doing a colossal disservice to crypto by portraying a romanticized and intensely rose-tainted view of crypto. In truth you're just setting up everyone around you to be disappointed. Between magical schemes where crypto transactions are magically instant and cost-free and pretending that crypto is not highly volatile (see the last Bitcoin 50% crash a couple months ago, or yesterday's flash crash) you're unwittingly pulling a bait-and-switch and in the process turning everyone away from it.
The "unlucky" and unusual event in this case is losing money on Bitcoin based on the prior evidence.