So I was on Facebook and I saw this post on a teen news page about Bitcoin.
I want to note that the news report that went with this was about people just buying stuff at a coffee shop with Bitcoin and how people can send money to each other. There was no mention of the security in the system or any in-depth explanation for that matter.
But anyways, here are some responses that I gathered. For the record I'm not trying to bash them, I'm just trying to explain the answers to their worries. So if you're ever stuck explaining BTC to someone concerned about one of these problems then you'll know what to say.
Now, this is a bit extreme. This person seems to think that the good ol' U.S. dollar (or whatever his nation's currency is) is just fine and doesn't want anything new. You obviously need an explanation of the Bitcoin philosophy.
It's only as secure as you choose it to be ;)
You must've either forgotten to encrypt your wallet, were not careful, or you were giving out your wallet encryption key.
There is actually a method of restarting the Internet if it goes down.
1) Hackers are taken care of by the system's security 2) There are paper Bitcoins and where'd that $200 figure come from?
I can't tell if this person's afraid of BTC or Moore's Law. Plus, techonological advancement isn't necessarily brought upon by Bitcoin, it's not even needed by it. The system can stay at it's current computational power, and we can still have a BTC economy.
Who said cash can't be hacked. Financial instutions holding dollars in their databases aren't impenetrable you know. Also, who said it was hard to pay in BTC? You can always use physical bills. On a side note, this person needs to learn how to edit comments.
A jailbroken iPhone isn't gonna make you any richer in the BTC world. The network will reject that you have that much cash.
Hackers can only hack wallets, so make a paper wallet if you're that worried. Also, BTC isn't excepted everywhere because people are still learning about it. It takes time for things this big to be accepted by the masses.
The opposite actually applies. With Bitcoin, you can actually buy almost anything online, including toys and games, no matter what your age.
Once again, BTC security makes the system pretty much impracticle to try and hack. Also, BTC a scam? Then explain why the media covered it in the first place. I don't think they'd be talking about investing in BTC if people were just being scammed all the time.
What failure? BTC is still worth more than it was at the beginning of the year. The recent price tank was merealy a 'price correction'.
No one's stopping you from having BTC bills in your pocket.
Easy to hack, maybe if you forgot to encrypt your wallet. And stupid?!?! Let's see you code a secure peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.
Buying stuff with a credit/debt card is buying stuff with digital dollar bills. You already have digital money, Bitcoin is just a different type.
You only have yourself to blame for falling for a scammer. If you do, and no one else has publicized being scammed too, make sure to warn everyone about the scammer. That way he'll be shut down. Also, in terms of software problems: bills and coins are also held in software, why aren't you worried about them?
Once again, it's very hard to hack the system.
Once again, physical BTC bills are available.
If you're saying digital currency is fake money. Then everything I've ever bought online is fake.
You know what I like? Having more than this amount of BTC in my wallet:
Then I'll feel rich! (If you have too many BTC for whatever weird reason, you can send some to 1Nsn24CAtmBny1pmSWevPmhDB2nnWtuBBu). Anyway's on to the next image...
Just try to counterfiet BTC. Also, all the stuff you mentioned can be purchased online with BTC.
Saying BTC is evil because of that means that dollars are illegal too. After all, I bet someone's willing to sell bank numbers for USD no-questions-asked on the street. Also, there's more to BTC than illegal items: BitPay now has a larger monthly transaction volume than the Silk Road.
I may have done a bit of bashing, but I think I got my points across. I also had more images, but I would have just ended up repeating what I already said. Anyway, I hope this gives you an idea of commonly asked Bitcoin questions and the skepticism some people have about it.
If you have anything to note, such as comments, improvements, your own contributions, criticisms, etc. feel free to say so.
-PCgameguy (aka TheOriginalPCgg)
Edit: Made a simple change to my response to the first image.