Banks are an excellent piece of infrastructure, as it stands. If you don't need to use Bitcoin, or you actually care about what happens to your money, just use a bank.
> The last transaction I sent using BTC cost me $.09.
And you denominated that in $$ instead of BTC why?
Because the value of BTC fluctuates so much that its worthless to denominate goods in terms of BTC. Only USD is stable enough to actually denominate the value of goods with.
And its not like USD is rock solid: we've got an inflation-based government pushing the value of USD down ~2% each year. But that's a lot more stable than BTC.
As long as BTC remains more volatile than my freaking stock portfolio, it is worthless to trade goods with it directly. Everything will need to be converted to and from USD if I'm actually to run a business. BTC could double in price (or half in price) in the next year and no one would be surprised.
Another plausible reason why he used the USD amount instead of 0.15 mBits, is because the Hacker News readership has had years to associate an internal "feeling" for what $0.09 is worth.
The Swiss Franc is also very stable and has similar qualities to USD. Would you not have complained if he cited the figure in Swiss Francs?
Hands up everyone here with a memory longer than that of a goldfish who remembers the Bitcoin promise "no fees!" The one they don't seem to make any more.