One comedian put it this way: You can't fix stupid.
Point being: Learning is a lifelong pursuit, and if you don't want to learn then you will be left behind using Facebook Messenger to send money. Kidding, but you hopefully get the gist.
That will change. Cryptocurrencies are here to stay. There is no undoing decentralized commerce. It will change the world in ways we can hardly fathom.
You just need a bitcoin balance and the recipient needs a bitcoin address. Which practically seems like way more friction than the three items you listed.
A better analogy is that it's like dismissing the alternatives to email that popped up in the later 90s and dismissing them because even though they were obviously better than email (but not as much so as email over snail mail), no one you knew used them.
Not to mention the fact that the recipient needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web. Worse, the recipient also needs a bitcoin exchange account to even make the conversion possible, then they have to wait two days for the exchange to ACH the money into their bank. This all assumes the exchange will even do business with them following their extensive KYC checks.
I've never had a bank require that I OAuth with Facebook or give them copies of my passport in order to get an account. Bitcoin is just not the solution to this problem.
> needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web
That's not true. Americans (Facebook's intended audience for this Messenger money-sending feature) can spend bitcoins directly at Microsoft, Dell, Expedia, Overstock, Newegg, Tiger Direct, DISH Network, etc. They can use and spend bitcoins theoretically received from FB friends without having a credit card, without even having a bank account.
Admittedly, my dark web remark was an exaggeration, however, it remains a practical truth for every day life. In the overwhelming majority of locales, bitcoin cannot be used to pay for groceries, insurance, utilities, rent/mortage, fuel, student loans, daycare, tuition, taxes, medical expenses, phone service, car payments or pretty much any of the common expenses someone might need to pay for. Newegg, Tiger Direct, Microsoft etc are all great companies, but for most people those companies only account for a small number of purchases per year.
The reality is that using bitcoin as money is very impractical, that's just a fact.
I think we need to kill the "bitcoin requires a passport" myth as well. I have used bitcoin for 4 years and have never had to present a passport for anything.
>Not to mention the fact that the recipient needs a bank account anyway if they want to convert their bitcoin into something that they can actually spend outside of the dark web.
No, I haven't read the list of locations where bitcoin is accepted. The reason for this is, like most people, I have a bank account and don't need to double check that I can actually pay for dinner and a movie before I patronize an establishment.
So that is 2 requirements for bitcoin versus 5 requirements for sending via facebook: bank acct, debit/credit card, email acct, facebook acct, facebook messenger (let's not forget the immense amount of personal information you willingly give away).