It's not better, even if it is a nifty hack.
I suppose the decentralization comes with efficiency and simplicity costs in both cases. Maybe they are worth it if your values align with it.
Maybe entrepreneurial HN'ers would tend to not like decentralized systems, because there's less control and profitability.
Permission required to participate in Bitcoin = none
Permission required to participate in any electronic-fiat-money-transfer-system™ = mucho
Then make a better system which doesn't burn all of Ireland's electrical output to handle 2 transactions a second, to let people transfer fiat to each other. Maybe you can call it "Pal Pay".
"But then I'd have to follow regulations!! :("
But you'd have to with Bitcoin as well. Just ask Coinbase or Circle.
"Ah, but Bitcoin gives me the option to evade the law, unlike those assholes as Google or PayPal who need 'identification' and keep whining about 'money laundering'".
Perhaps, but you could build a system to track IOUs on Tor if you'd wanted and as long as your OPSEC wasn't as shitty as DPR's "my_crimes.txt" you could evade the law for awhile too.
As it stands those are mostly orthogonal concerns, although I do appreciate how nice it is for the Feds to be able to publicly view every transaction ever made in Bitcoin, something that couldn't be done on an off-blockchain system.
I've actually created a service (B2B) which requires bitcoin as I need atomicity, which bitcoin delivers perfectly (as long as I wait for N confirmations, it's pretty certain that I now _own_ the bitcoins). This is where PayPal fails, people can get refunds, chargebacks from credit card providers & PayPal can limit/suspend your account without notice (which they are famous for doing). I'm not a pro/anti bitcoin evangalist but I'm just throwing out there an example of what "programmable money" actually means. Bank transfers work well for non-refundable payments as well but most banks don't offer an API so bitcoins is the best alternative for my use case.
Other advantages over PayPal are the OP codes and multisig which are a powerful thing for programmers to use. Bitcoin is great for merchants/developers but it has many disadvantages for customers.
Atomicity is not a distributed database feature unique to Bitcoin, or even to PoW-based schemes in general.
Though if Bitcoin happens to work for your use case then by all means, don't reinvent the wheel.
> (as long as I wait for N confirmations, it's pretty certain that I now _own_ the bitcoins)
That's assuming your transaction makes it into a mined block. There have been backlogs of multiple blocks worth of transactions waiting to make it into a mined block, and there's been a huge blocksize debate going on partially because of that (which brings the potential for a fork of the blockchain into competing camps no less!)
Even after getting your transaction into a mined block, it's not unheard of to have orphaned blocks https://blockchain.info/charts/n-orphaned-blocks so you need to determine what level of atomicity you need. If it's actually 100% instead of 99.99% then even Bitcoin is not safe for your use case.
You need permission to use cash with someone's online infrastructure because the world is rife with bad actors.
A payment system isn't graded by "permissions", it is graded by how well it handles disputes. That is why in it's current state, the future-of-money-Bitcoin™ won't work for many, many people and isn't competitive. (even with multi-sig escrow)
You're canvassing this thread making vapid pro-bitcoin arguments, which is probably your attempt to reconcile reality with your constructed view of Bitcoin. It's okay to admit Bitcoin isn't competitive.
Bitcoin is a system with rules just as much as any other financial system, so the point that was made about "not needing permission" is factually wrong.
If you're trying to say that you'll simply break the law, you are also able to do so with fiat cash flows (just ask the cartels).
I'll grant you that Bitcoin requires more "permission" than "none", in the form of licenses and tax reporting in many usecases, as well as technical things like nobody having guaranteed permission to have their transaction processed (even if it follows all published rules.)
The rules are published in open-source code, and you don't have to "sign up" to submit transactions or follow the blockchain, or contract with any entity exclusively in control of the network. Maybe we're not adequately describing the unique quality, but it seems obvious to me that there's a big qualitative difference between e.g., Bitcoin and ACH. You can say it's not worth-it, useful, or interesting in your opinion, but what other financial system publishes all nominal rules and is governed by a self-regulating network that is 99% likely to let anyone do anything permitted by said rules?
I may also be overly optimistic about how long consensus will last, or how "fair" the system is in practice. Still, over the last few years, I'd say Bitcoin has been a uniquely open financial system.