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170 sats \ 7 replies \ @Scoresby 17h \ on: My friends think Bitcoin is a joke. There's nowhere to spend it or Lightning. bitcoin
Most people do not see the usefulness of it. Visa/bank cards/payment apps work well enough for them. Places like Steak and Shake can start accepting bitcoin and that's fun, but after the initial burst of activity, I'd wager they have very very low numbers of bitcoin transactions. Ideological adoption is only gonna get us so far.
I'm hopeful that some payments use-cases are emerging that are so obviously the easiest way to do a thing that people start using bitcoin without actually caring that they are using bitcoin.
People who run webstores might like it because no charge-backs, no fees, and no borders, but you still have to run something like BTC Payserver and your own node and maybe manage channels...but they still need to be pretty motivated to get it done.
People who have OnlyFans and have a hard time keeping tradfi accounts open might like it because they are in a sector that banking really doesn't like, but how many of their fans are able and willing to pay in bitcoin?
AI stuff is also promising because it's really frustrating to get into a subscription when all you want to do is use the product for a specific project. And then there's agents that might need the ability to spend money themselves. Bitcoin is well suited for this.
I'm sure there are more such cases. But I doubt adoption at the local coffee shop as anything more than a publicity stunt for a long while yet.
And for the wider world, the thing that brings bitcoin to mind is number go up. They don't think they need it and most people are never going to spend very much time learning why they do need it. But when the price goes up, they FOMO.
People who have OnlyFans and have a hard time keeping tradfi accounts open might like it because they are in a sector that banking really doesn't like, but how many of their fans are able and willing to pay in bitcoin?
I'm surprised we don't see more of this.
I've gone to the 'donation' section of numerous newspapers, big ones and especially small ones... both in clear net and over Tor and you would think you'd see tons of them with the ability to take Bitcoin/Monero donations.
Do they? No. It's really rare.
Some anon journalist writing about important things reporting on the powers that be, much less niche journalism on special topics...... why wouldn't they have an address or btcpay or LNaddress or something with which they can accept donations? But they don't have it and it doesn't make any sense to me.
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Ideological adoption is only gonna get us so far
Cory Klippsten said something on a podcast a few years back that always stuck with me. Something about how historical revolutions only needed 10% of the population onboard in order to enact complete societal change.
So, I disagree when you say ideological adoption is only gonna get us so far. I think idealogical adoption can take us all the way. The problem is, most Bitcoiners are still too comfortable using and thinking in fiat terms, while using Bitcoin only as an investment vehicle. And I'm not talking about the short-term traders using Coinbase. I'm talking "hard-core" Bitcoiners who have read all the books and really understand the stakes. They aren't pushing very hard to end fiat. They keep talking about Trojan horses and Gresham's law... while comfortably using fiat.
There are enough of us to change the world today if we organized and focused on our ideals instead of them being only a side story in our lives.
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They aren't pushing very hard to end fiat. They keep talking about Trojan horses and Gresham's law... while comfortably using fiat.
It's really hard to go go off fiat. I pay my bills in fiat and save/use Bitcoin where I can. But I really have to go out of my way (to use it) and 'normies' have no idea what I'm talking about
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Fair point. Many religions back you up. Christianity and Islam and Hinduism have remade the world. If we want to pursue Bitcoin adoption in the same manner as religions, perhaps we will similarly succeed.
I'd prefer to pursue adoption along the lines of technical innovations like automobiles, the internet, and smart phones. People didn't need to promote these things for ideological reasons. People chose to adopt them because they found it useful. I'm sure I'm looking at things with rose colored glasses here, but I'm of the opinion that bitcoin needs to win because it's undeniably better -- and I think that happens when people adopt it because it's the best way to achieve their goals.
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For me, it's not that I think Bitcoiners should be ideologically pushing Bitcoin adoption so much as I think they should be avoiding the dollar with a religious-like passion.
It's their comfortable relationship with fiat, while simultaneously talking about how bad it is... that is what pisses me off the most. I think if we really believed what we preach, we would be creating small, Amish-like communities with Bitcoin circular economies and we would go out of our way to use fiat as little as possible.
I want to see a religious-like "jihad" against the dollar. Bitcoin just becomes the obvious choice for money when we refuse to use dollars. Or maybe we can try something like Goldbacks, I dunno. Just stop using dollars, mmkay? And stop giving me lip-service about taxes, greshham's law, and trojan horses. You're just making excuses to be lazy. That shit's just noise. STOP USING DOLLARS. It's a simple goal to strive for, and I'm not seeing much of it in this community.
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I think if we really believed what we preach, we would be creating small, Amish-like communities with Bitcoin circular economies
Ask your Uber driver if he has a Lightning wallet. I have... many times and there isn't one who knows what it is.