[ArekDymalski]

There are several reasons for (s)low adoption among regular consumers: 1. It's still new and niche, many people haven't heard about it. 2. Those who heard about bitcoin in mainstream media had a chance to read both praise and scary coverage (black market, hacking, Mt Gox loses etc) 3. Bitcoin companies aren't that good in presenting themselves in terms of benefits for the layman. We should accept the fact that bitcoin is still on the beginning of it's journey through Gartner's hype cycle.Somewhere around the peak of inflated expectations I guess.

[sanswork]

How long would you say the bitcoin community can continue to shout out early days before its not actually true? 2014 was going to be the year of Bitcoin. It was on the news regularly, new companies sprouted up that made it pretty easy for a lot of people to get bitcoin if they want it, plenty of merchants started accepting it and instead of taking off it's done the opposite. We're a quarter of the way through 2015 and despite a few major announcements there is no apparent sign of any change in the public perception.

The community seems content to talk about how long email or the internet took to become common while at the same time ignoring the fact that the internet has vastly decreased the amount of time it takes for new technologies and ideas to spread.

At what point going forward of no growth would you admit it has peaked?

[CyberDildonics]

How fast does it have to be for you? It was only in the last year that there were even multiple viable places to buy btc in the US.

Sentiments like this are akin to people looking at the internet in the days of prodigy and saying 'I can send a letter and get sports scores from the newspaper, the internet is overhyped'

20 years later it is still a transformative force in people's lives that continues to change and evolve.

[sanswork]

>How fast does it have to be for you?

Fast enough to show progress.

>It was only in the last year that there were even multiple viable places to buy btc in the US.

Coinbase has been around since 2012, and now we've had a few choices even beyond them for over a year and they still haven't made a difference. Don't you ever wonder why Coinbase and Bitpay are so adamant about not releasing real figures for anything? Coinbase releases number of wallets which is a worthless vanity metric since you can have multiple wallets and it tells us nothing of use. Bitpay released tons of details on last Bitcoin Black Friday and this year their only statement was that its not all about the numbers. More recently they've cancelled their sponsorship of the Bitcoin Bowl early.

You're replying to a comment where I point out the problem with comparing bitcoin to the early internet by comparing it to the early internet. The difference between then and now is the level of improvement and the inability for the existing system to match the improvements of the new one. The internet is a huge improvement over sending a letter and getting sports scores. Massive, unquestionable. Bitcoin isn't a huge improvement over the traditional banking system(even for the unbanked).

[borgia]

>At what point going forward of no growth would you admit it has peaked?

I don't think you're going to get such an admission from the average, invested, Bitcoin enthusiast any time soon.

You're entirely correct in your post here. 2014 was meant to be "the" year for Bitcoin and it was an absolute flop. Nothing came from it.

There seems to be this overall naive belief of "if you build it, they will come" while "it" has no clear value to anyone beyond those who want to carry out illegal transactions.

The "why" "they" will come to it seems to be ever expanding as enthusiasts grasp in hope that someday the currency they're using as an investment instrument will see wider adoption and make them money for their patience and continued public praise of it.

Bitcoin seems to have become a matter of faith more than anything else. If you truly believe you'll go to Bitcoin heaven. Ignore those who question it as they hath no clue.

[Mahn]

The most important question, though, is not "why haven't regular consumers realized the benefits of bitcoin yet", but rather, "what are the benefits of bitcoin that will make regular consumers adopt it". And I just never see an obvious answer or argument to that latter question.

[waterlesscloud]

Why do regular consumers need to adopt it for it to be a successful technology?

[sanswork]

Because institutional users are far more likely to want to build on something they can have some control over.

[waterlesscloud]

Institutional users aren't regular consumers, but institutional users are more likely to benefit (in the short term at least) from the programmable money aspects.

[sanswork]

That is my point though. Institutional users may be more likely to benefit from that but they aren't going to want to give up control. So that leaves only regular users as a driving force behind it.

There is a reason IBM, UBS, etc are building blockchain research centres and not just throwing their weight behind bitcoin itself.