All the things you mention have value. But what is the value of using Bitcoins for the average person? Where are Bitcoins so obviously better than a credit card that switching is a good decision?
No one's telling you to switch to Bitcoin, but it's clear that lots of people are going to use it.
Block rewards have no effect on whether people will use Bitcoin, especially since there are other digital currencies that don't have that issue. Inasmuch as it's a problem, it's fixable.
Hundreds of thousands of people involved in making the current system work. Legislation and so on.
If I send $100 worth of bitcoin to someone, they receive $100 worth of bitcoin and I pay 4 cents worth of bitcoin to send it to them. There is no $10-20 transaction cost on either end of the exchange.
The value you're referring to is created by the block reward. It's additional value that did not previously exist, not value taken from someone else.
There is no such cost for a given transaction, and it's simply incorrect to state that there is.
You're talking about something completely different and stating that it's the same. It is not.
1. Due to Bitcoin's cash-esque nature, you don't hand over your account keys when you make a transaction. Every time I hand my credit card to a 16-year-old waiter I'm trusting that he's not going to take a quick picture of it with his cell phone to go shopping with online later. Since a Bitcoin transaction encodes a specific transfer of a specific amount from one address to another, I don't have to worry that that transaction is going to get leaked down the road (/stolen at an ATM/gas station/POS terminal) and end up putting my entire financial stability at risk.
2. Credit card processing fees inhibit a lot of services that could be microtransaction-based from becoming reality, because they aren't financially viable to run once you consider transaction fees. Bitcoin opens opportunities for a huge range of services that are only viable with minimal transaction fees to become reality.
With transaction costs currently between 10 and 20 dollars per transaction and with a record of close to 100 dollars it does not really look like a good way to implement micro transactions.
Who ever needed TCP/IP besides the governments? Well as it turns out the whole world did and not in any way it was originally intended.
The difference between short term hype and long term implications are always hard but I think when it comes to bitcoin I think its fair to say that we haven't even begun to see the implications.
The key advantages are decentralization and anonymity and to the average person who just wants a simple secure payment solution a credit card has all the advantages.
For the average person, I can list a few reasons: - near immediate transfer of money across international borders - close to zero fees or greatly reduced fees when transferring money internationally - safe and secure store of value (for the unbanked)
Then there are the future killer apps that will be created - tipping on the internet (changeTip / Coinbase) - programatic money - smart contracts - pure play digital banking - ??
It's hard to see how bitcoin could apply to the general public sitting at your computer in a first world country. But keep in mind there are nearly 5 billion unbanked or unserved people in the world where bitcoin (or similar) will change their life.