Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

I am not surprised. I am a programmer with decades of experience under my belt, and I have no idea how to install bitcoin in a way that would allow me convenient use of it. No, I can install the apps, and I can spend a month or two waiting until it downloads the whole 40+G of current blockchain, or I can trust some site that says it'd fix it for me, or I can open an account on any of the exchanges and pray to cryptogods it's not the one that is going to be robbed or go bust next. But why would I?

Now, if I would plan to trade in commodities that local government is frowning upon, or speculatively invest in assets that make Las Vegas look like index funds, it would be worth my while. But I don't, so it isn't.

Now make a step from myself - the experienced professional who actually knows what Bitcoin is and can probably explain how it works without wading too far from the truth - to a person who doesn't know the difference between "browser" and "internet". Why on earth would they go through this trouble - and more importantly, why on earth anybody who cares about them would advice them to go there at all? My advice to anybody who is not an agressive risk investor or a person with interests misaligned with current law would be "not with a ten foot pole". Right now it's so ripe with opportunities for both unintentional screwups and intentional skullduggery that I don't see how people can do consumer commerce with it.

exaggerating a bit? bitcoin syncs within couple hours unless you run it on the computer you'd gain your decades of experience on :)

every mobile bitcoin app is a lightweight client - it only syncs block headers, much faster but not great for large sums of money.

so for a person that can't tell "browser" from "internet" there's no difference between introducing them to paypal or to bitcoin - it's just an app on your phone and you can press the "send" button.

Yes, but for that person the all advantages of Bitcoin that are typically mentioned (trust-less, secure, etc.) go out of the window.

trustlessness goes out a window a bit. everything else stays the same.

> it only syncs block headers

I think what the parent comment is trying to say is: who cares about this? Not even many of us technical people care.

It's like saying, "Just get the mobile app, it just synchroaligns the ledger manifest distributable intra-block metadata! Duh! Simple!"

It's not accessible to people, and not even engineers who aren't familiar with the tech.

I don't need to understand the minting process to know how to use a dollar, but for some reason the Bitcoin community expects you to understand blocks, difficulty, ledgers, exchanges, and many other concepts that are relatively advanced and take time and effort to understand. A dollar is a dollar.

This continually seems to fall on deaf ears.

this is just weird.. i was addressing GP's concern about performance of syncing. of course i wouldn't bother explaining how bitcoin works and what are the modes of operation and performance differences between them to a lay person. they don't care. they care that it's just an app.

so what exactly did you want to say?

It's missing the forest for the trees.

With paypal, if someone gives you trouble, you can call support and reverse the payment. And they have protection policies. With bitcoin, if anything happens, you're the idiot who bought into the hype and now getting what was coming you you. For consumer, there's a huge difference - that's why "ZERO FRAUD LIABILITY" is written on every credit card conditions in big friendly letters. Are there any zero fraud liability bitcoin instruments? Are they even possible?

paypal is a product built on top of existing currency. bitcoin is a currency on top of which you can build paypal-like product. there are many things trivially done in bitcoin that are absolutely impossible in bare usd. one can use multisig escrow accounts to implement paypal-like dispute resolution but also limiting the influence middleman (paypal) has - can't run away with your money, can't block the transaction against will of both participants, etc.

this tech is a decade old but it's still in it's infancy especially regarding UX side.

> bitcoin is a currency on top of which you can build paypal-like product

I can't, I don't have time. No, I understand you mean "somebody might build" - but so far, nobody did. When it changes, the evaluation changes too. So far, we aren't there by no means.

> there are many things trivially done in bitcoin that are absolutely impossible in bare usd

Sure. How many of them are necessary to a typical credit card/cash user?

> one can use multisig escrow accounts to implement paypal-like dispute resolution

You seem to be under impression dispute resolution is a technical problem in search of suitable algorithm. It's not - it is a social/service problem which needs careful balance between trust to various parties and careful calculation of how expensive each tweak to trust levels would be and how to keep fraud in check without pissing off too many people. It's not an algorithmic problem (at least not until we have strong AI).

> can't run away with your money

Which also means no possibility to curtail fraud - if the middle-man can't reverse transaction, what prevents me from selling you an iphone, sending a brick instead and leaving with the money? Or, alternatively, what prevents me from buying an iphone and claiming I got a brick instead, and getting my money back and a free iphone?

> can't block the transaction against will of both participants

Which also means feds close it after a month because it is being used to trade drugs. And seize all the funds there (if you're adventurous, you can sue the federal government for the return of the funds - maybe in 10 years you'll even succeed!)

> No, I understand you mean "somebody might build" - but so far, nobody did.

there are plenty of products on top of bitcoin. but i guess it's important for you to believe that there are none?

> Sure. How many of them are necessary to a typical credit card/cash user?

gee, i don't know, what do you think, does typical credit card/cash user do this thing called "transacting with other people"? sigh.

> You seem to be under impression dispute resolution is a technical problem in search of suitable algorithm

when you're not sure it's wise to ask rather than to make assumptions.

> if the middle-man can't reverse transaction, what prevents me from selling you an iphone, sending a brick instead and leaving with the money

what prevents you is smart application of cryptography. maybe you should inform yourself on the topic before arguing? https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Multisignature#Multisignature_App...

> feds close it after a month because it is being used to trade drugs

quick, somebody tell feds most of drug deals are done in USD, make them close USD!

this is depressing.

Just use the mobile wallets? It's very easy.

There's no need for end users to store the whole blockchain.

Run SPV wallet like Electrum. It's the same size as a regular desktop application and takes about a minute to setup.

Doesn't it require essentially trusting Electrum server with your money (and your transactions)?

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