I was doing some thinking into the value proposition bitshares has for the average non crypto user. Which is prob around 99.9% of the population.
Most people wont care that the solution is decentralized, the assets unseizable and requires no trust. Infact many people prefer a centralized, solution that requires regulation.
To work out what the value proposition of bitshares for the majority of people, we need to compare it to the current centralize services.
And we need to pretend for a moment we are providing a centralized service and then ask why people would use it.
lets pretend:
- We are a centralized service, like PayPal.
- We are providing a service for the exchange of IOUs dollars/gold and other commodities and currencies.
- People can put money onto the system and exchange IOUs with other users at low transaction costs.
- People can trade IOUs for IOUs of a different kind to gain exposure to different commodities and currencies.
- Transactions are fast and global.
This looks like a decent traditional centralized service but, regulation aside, is not too difficult to create.
So lets pretend we have created this centralized service and we are direct competitor to the likes of PayPal. What are the next steps to gain user adoption.
- there needs to be a very small barrier to entry (paypal users can easily link their credit card).
- users need to be able to draw their cash back into their bank accounts quickly and easily.
- merchants need to start using bitshares as a way for their customers to pay them (this is different from saying they need to accept bitUSD).
- user conversion should involve zero need to understand the mechanisms of how the system works.
I thought this would be an interesting way of looking at things as we need to be better or at least as good as current centralized services (and being decentralized and trust free doesnt count