Bingo, untold resources have already been wasted trying to force Bitcoin as a payments system in the meat space, that's not where its product market fit is because there's not a real problem there to be solved.

Even the Bitcoin Bar, Pubkey, still does most of its transactions with cash or CC. There are some usability issues with multiple bartenders using a single node (which the architecture Lightning.Pub and ShockWallet solve actually) but that doesn't change the fact that customers, even hardcore bitcoiners, have 0 reason to pay in Bitcoin except to virtue signal. Even I use my Discover card when I'm in town.

Paying attention to this wrong thing has left gaps in other areas though of course, its entirely our fault that micro-services and things susceptible to chargebacks on the internet are not using Bitcoin/Lightning. There's people catching on to the fact that Bitcoin should be the native currency of AI, but even simpler than that, things like VPS/VPN/Mail Relay and things like that in a hostile internet environment are prime candidates... its just that the tooling for this still sucks horribly as we've collectively built everything but what is needed.

I think the wallets and POS systems are still too difficult for the common person to use. For example I been thinking about how I can tip my barber in sats and not cash.

Tell him to download strike? Most people roll their eyes and don’t want to deal with another app. Then let’s say you get them to download the app the next is ask how do I turn this into cash/money I can spend.

So I just gave up

I get the sense that it is on people’s mind (people being lightning devs) but their daily operations/ money-making sustaining work/ interests take them other places before this one. I would want to explain to a small business owner why saving in bitcoin long term is a good plan, and this is of more importance than the ability to accept a new form of money for small purchases in their shop. So there’s a misalignment, as I see it. But you’re right, the gap is widened by the friction in the tech. Still, I think there’s lessons to learn particularly from Square and Cashapp….didnt their innovations serve the small business owner first? And treat them as primary?

I largely agree with what @justin_shocknet is saying in the comments, but I also see scope for easier to use payment systems for small businesses.

If something simple enough existed, I would tell some of the small businesses near me about it and promise to increase my patronage if they accepted lightning payments.

tricky question, the answer to it obviously has huge potential financial windfall. I'd say probably target some niche that has a big overlap with existing bitcoiners interest e.g. not too niche, and/or simple integrating btc payments to an already existing business since bitcoina will seek out businesses that accept btc

Great post. I think BTCPay Server and Zaprite are really great tools for small businesses. Especially for e-commerce and consultants, respectively.

I think easy ways to connect Bitcoin payments to existing systems are always in short supply. That's why BTCpay really shines: connection to Woo commerce, Shopify and BigCommerce are really key.

Creators: musicians, photographers, videographers, writers. I guess you could class some of them as SMB.

These are the folks who need an easy to use alternative to take credit cards, but instead take Bitcoin, and take stablecoins.

The problem is Visa and the credit cards have a huge advantage, and few will jump to Bitcoin unless there is some incentive and huge easy of use.

BTC Pay Server is not that easy to use. Is there something super easy out there that does Point-of-Sale and has a fiat exit ramp? That could be a business.