I find it hilarious how Bitcoin haters (like the ones we have here on HN) say it's never going to work, but then they spend hours every day trying to talk people out of using it.
I find it hilarious how Bitcoin cheerleaders say there aren't any downsides, and then spend hours every day posting "chargebacks aren't important" and "merchants will obviously pass all the savings on to consumers". YMMV.
What do chargebacks have to do with a currency? Chargebacks is something offered by services built on top of the currency, not the currency itself. Else tell me how to chargeback USD bills.
If you think chargebacks are the most important thing mentioning when attacking Bitcoin, then it seems like it does have a bright future.
> What do chargebacks have to do with a currency? Chargebacks is something offered by services built on top of the currency, not the currency itself.
Chargebacks have to do with bitcoin because one of the selling points frequently cited for use of bitcoin, a non-legal-tender currency, is that it is a consumer transaction mechanism that is better than legal-tender currencies and the transaction mechanisms provided on top of them by the financial services industry.
The value of these things is a Keynesian beauty contest. If enough people decide that Bitcoin is a valid currency then it is a valid currency (just like baseball cards).
I think that would be bad for society. Any new value in the bitcoin ecosystem increases the value held by the early adopters - who are mostly drug dealers or other criminals, and the rest are the miners who enabled them. (bitcoin does have some advantages for some legitimate use cases, but the biggest advantages were for the criminal use cases).
This is false. And you have no source to prove it. I know a lot of early adopters through various channels. They are geeks, crypto nerds, cypherpunks. Think guys like Hal Finney, Wei Dai, etc. Nice guys who like to explore new ideas.
Maybe you are just upset that you "missed the boat" on bitcoin or something. But you've got to stop believing every Bitcoin user is a criminal.
The bitcoin community is tremendously ignorant of critical social theory and proud of it, which is a cause of concern. Some people care about more than themselves believe it or not.