That would be nice to know and definitely more informative than a graph of daily activity within the blockchain.
* preferably something mundane and totally within the boundaries of the law
From whos point of view?
As a merchant, I'd love it if our customers all paid in BTC as it would eliminate all fraudulent/charge-backed transactions which cost us $15 each time. (A nice little money earning industry for the CC companies btw!)
As a customer, I'd rather pay with my CC so I have some protection over my payment.
If you're looking for something that's better from both points of view, then drugs is the obvious one that springs to mind.
Consumer based foreign exchange (swapping my GBP for USD for my holiday to USD) by using Bitcoin as an intermediary vehicle could save me a ton of money as well, this isn't exactly possible yet but would be awesome if it could be done one day. It's better for everyone except the rip off middle men who charge horrible fees and rate spreads.
Another service that would be better with Bitcoin would be remittance. This one is cited often, and should not be overlooked. Again, middle men banks and rip off services are the only ones who would suffer. And it's a huge huge market.
Take a look at the control large institutions have on the market as well to see further benefit. Wikileaks for example endured a "banking blockade". The banking industry stopped for a moment in time Wikileaks being able to accept donations via Mastercard, Visa etc. With Bitcoin, no corporations can interfere with fund raising.
What about charity?
> When you donate via credit card, the charity has to pay a transaction fee of 2-3% on the transaction. If you make a $100 donation, your charity only gets $97 of it. According to a Huffington Post article, banks and card networks make about $250 million a year off of charitable donations. http://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/nonprofits/donate-charities-c...
Let's cut these middle men out of the equation, if I donate to charity 100% of my Bitcoin are guaranteed to arrive in their control. It makes me feel sick that when I donate to charity some credit company is taking their cut.
As a customer I would never pay with BTC for exactly the same reason.
Why wouldn't you, if you trust the merchant?
It's really easy to donate money with bitcoins. You don't have to give up any identifying information and every dollar you send goes directly to the charity. That's how I donated to the EFF and it was an awesome experience. I wish more non-profit orgs accepted Bitcoin. NPR I am talking to you!
Buying things online from other countries without having to go through the "demoninational dance"
Anyone who is unbanked and/or uncredited (still most of the world, btw) could benefit from doing business with cryptocoin
Anyone who is in a country with a completely overinflated currency
Anyone who wants to take their money out of a country with lame capital controls
Anyone who wants to carry their money inside their head (brainwallet) instead of in a controlled-by-third-party bank account
Donating without giving any personal information (don't even get me started about the outright harassment I experienced after donating to someone who unfortunately got my number)
Kids can use them to buy things online without credit
Check this site out. Seconds after you send the specified bitcoins to the QR code/address using your smartphone or bitcoin wallet app... It triggers the download.
No entering in of CC information or account creation required. Just blip, get download of book, done.
How fucking cool is that?