TBF the current state of Bitcoin is on par with what banks have always been offering for international transfers. So, it still has the use case of sending unrestricted amounts of money to a peer abroad.
However, I agree on the general sentiment. Transactions are more expensive than they should be.
- I am not american. I used international transfers with french, british, japanese and korean banks, and there always was either a fee of 30~50$, or an awful sub-market exchange rate.
- TransferWise is not universal and does not work for many currencies, including the Chinese Yuan and the Indian Rupee.
TransferWise can send rupees to Indian bank accounts and I am assuming the reason they cannot take money out of India is because of Indian Govt forex regulations.
And there's the next massive bitcoin advantage : you can bypass financial regulations for normal people.
"Somehow" these rich bankers and regulators (mostly ex-bankers of course) do not see the need for poor people to be able to transact either internationally, or in some countries, at all (in anything but cash, and thus very short distance only).
With bitcoin it's 30$, but there's no percentual charge (in fact the exchange rate is often better than market for BOTH participants because bitcoin is rising in value)
However, I agree on the general sentiment. Transactions are more expensive than they should be.