The medium is partly the problem.
I think you've missed the point of my comment, which is that I actively disregard sources that have that defect, and look for sources that tell me about verified, actionable information. (I have been wondering about the pattern of upvotes and downvotes on my comment, and if this is what people think I am saying, that I like the sensational, they are badly misreading my comment.)
"Society needs journalism – but in a different way. Investigative journalism is always relevant. We need reporting that polices our institutions and uncovers truth. But important findings don't have to arrive in the form of news. Long journal articles and in-depth books are good, too."
You and the author seem to mostly agree in that respect.
News is bad because it focuses on the sensational and misses the actionable.
That's actually what frustrates me most about this article. For people who do plan to continue following news (likely including most readers of the article), the article isn't very actionable.
I would love to see a few smart people work together, look through the author's points, and outline a few ways to mitigate the legitimate problems summarized in each point. The article might be useful for other people who haven't considered these points before, but in its current state of merely spreading awareness, it's not very useful for me.
... what if bitcoin, currently, _is_ only about the speculative aspect, and is not actually more useful with less friction?
Off topic, but... I recently bought a days usage from put.io with bitcoin. They got their money instantly, I don't have to worry about a hacker getting my credit card info or using more bitcoins in my wallet than I gave. I didn't have to enter a bunch of personal information to prove my identity.
You are wrong here. You did exactly that (a bitcoin transaction is that), just in a way you are not used to.
When a hacker gets your bitcoin wallet, they can empty out your entire account.
I don't really know why credit cards don't have a public/private key situation but they don't, so people are just stealing them constantly or applying for them with a bunch of stolen personal information and then running up your credit in ways that are pretty difficult to detect.
A lot of the fraud that is occurring today is because the systems we are using to transmit wealth digitally are inherently very insecure.
When the government wishes to make your life miserable and you have a bitcoin wallet, they have to do a lot more work if they want those funds.
And I like your example of a use of bitcoin apart from speculation. The sensationalist articles love bitcoin because it is new, but also because a few people have become rich and poor from speculating on it and its future is uncertain, which leaves lots of room in the stories for "raising concerns".
But as tokenadult pointed out, we can avoid those articles and the sources that tend to deliver them.
I actually believe this renewed news spam (brought by ourselves through the internet) probably makes us all dumber as a whole, over time.