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Comment by sabj | Hacker News Reader

I'm more confused than when I started. I understand the concept, but not the ecosystem or money supply... or exchange rate.

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Ecosystem? How about the Payment portion of the ecosystem ... let's take a "competitor", PayPal, for example. When you send $100 to a business using your Paypal, the recipient gets $97, or less. With bitcoin, when you send $100, the recipient gets $100 (at least until fees are necessary ... but even when that starts being necessary the fees should be just a FRACTION of what Visa / MC / PayPal / etc. take.)

so, you're saying if paypal/mastercard/visa charged no money for transfer, you would continue using them?

that example isn't reason enough for me to use bitcoin.

Said paypal/mastercard/visa would lose money to fraud.

The bitcoin miners only process the transactions. They don't care about fraud and chargeback.

A less expensive payment network is one reason bitcoins might be used. Ask ten people why they use bitcoins and you'll get ten different answers. For some, it will be the ability to send money without needing a bank. For another person the reason might be related to the anonymity that bitcoin offers. Bitcoin's benefits range from supporting micropayments to supporting large transfers with no chargeback risk.

But for the long term, When the list of payment methods reads:

  Visa / MC / AmEx / Bitcoin (receive 2% discount)

which button do you think most consumers will choose?

I'll agree that it's confusing, but I will also say that it's less confusing than our practices with mainstream fiat currency.

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